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Street Children (Congo)

I shall be brief, because we need to hear those other speeches. I welcome the debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) on securing it. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) on their excellent contributions. I wish that we had a system that would allow us to show large photographs or film in debates such as this to accompany what we are saying, because it is hard to convey to a European audience the true horror of life for ordinary people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the sense of hopelessness and the complete sense of insecurity that surrounds their lives in every way. I am pleased that the Secretary of State is here to reply to the debate, and I thank him for his huge personal commitment to give genuine and serious support to aid development in the poorest and most war-torn parts of Africa. That is appreciated and understood by many. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, I was an election observer in the first round of the presidential and parliamentary elections in the DRC. Our visit was funded by Christian Aid. We met a number of non-governmental organisations on our visits to Kinshasa and where we were monitoring elections in Bas-Congo, which was an extremely interesting experience. I agree that the administration of the election on the day in the area that we saw was not too bad, although I have some misgivings about the quality of the counting at regional counting centres and the sheer chaos that surrounded much of that. However, there was clearly an understanding and a wish that the election process should be fair, open and properly run. The training levels and equipment provided were impressive given the situation and the circumstances. There are nevertheless questions in my mind. On my visits to a number of villages in the Bas-Congo region, I saw that there was no water, poor roads, no schools, no police, no army and no health service, so I wonder what the election is all about. The people are electing representatives to go to some distant place, but will those representatives bring any real improvements to those communities or will they follow the grand tradition of corruption that has bedevilled Congo for the past 30 years and merely feather their own nests by fiddling contracts in Kinshasa while the people of their areas do not benefit in any way? Serious questions must be asked about what should happen after the election, because if there is to be any confidence in a democratic process, it has to bring about real improvements and changes for the people living in what is a very poor situation in an incredibly wealthy country. There is no question but that the wealth of Congo is astronomical compared with any other African country—indeed, almost any other country in the world. The population is small: as the hon. Member for Gainsborough pointed out, the country is the size of western Europe, it has a population the size of Britain’s, and it has resources that no European country has, so the potential is enormous. The money and wealth that has been taken from Congo, all around the world, is astronomical. Those serious issues must be addressed, but the debate is about the more specific issue of children in Congo, particularly the victims of the war. When my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley and I went to a number of children’s centres, such as that in Kinshasa, I felt a sense of deep depression and hopelessness for those children. They are victims of war, AIDS, famine, being child soldiers, exploitation, prostitution and crime. Those who are lucky enough to get into some kind of centre at least have a modicum of security for part of the day, but the only way that they can survive is to go out and sell things on the streets of Kinshasa. I asked someone, ““How does the economy of the DRC work for most people?”” They replied, ““Well, you buy things in small quantities and you sell them in even smaller quantities.”” It goes on like that. There is very little manufacturing—it is all trading in bits and pieces of imported goods—so there has to be some serious economic development through which genuine jobs are provided in manufacturing and agriculture and all that comes with that. In relation to the children, several issues must be raised. I welcome the support given by Save the Children, War Child and other charities and organisations which are doing a good job in supporting children in a difficult situation and in challenging the nonsense talked by a number of pastors, their exploitation of faith and religion, and the abominable way in which they treat children. Some of the illegal churches become quite good businesses: a person can set up a church, denounce someone as a witch and then exorcise Satan from their body, and they make quite a bit of money through the exorcisms. That is a vile and cruel business. The nearest example that I can think of is in the novel ““Elmer Gantry”” and the way in which people are treated in the United States. What goes on is vile, but it is the product of the society. The hon. Member for Gainsborough explained quite well what goes on: if the police, army, teachers and civil servants are not paid, how on earth are people supposed to survive? The highest priority in Congo has to be the development of universal, free, secular primary education run by the state for the whole country. I do not know the figures—I do not think that anyone does—but I would be surprised if more than 30 per cent. of children go to school. Half the population are teenagers or younger. Logic tells me, and I am sure that everyone would agree, that illiteracy and the number of people with no education whatever is rising. If no education is offered, how are we to challenge the nonsense put forward by some of the pastors? I know that the support given by DFID and others concentrates on those areas, and I hope that the outcome of the election will be peaceful and will develop a Government who are serious about development and providing decent education and health opportunities for the people, particularly the children who have suffered so much. It is hard for anyone outside Congo or who has never seen it to understand the sheer hopelessness of life for many of the children. They are growing up in a war-torn country and they have to migrate large distances. Often there are no family structures, but even where they exist, as Members have explained, children are commonly thrown out of them and have to survive on the streets of Kinshasa where the public health is appalling and the drainage, sewerage, refuse collection and health systems do not work. The only available health care is the sale of water tablets or bottled water in order to prevent them from contracting some horrible disease from polluted water or the fetid swamps alongside all the major roads in the city. There is a huge job to be done in that respect. In a sense, the children are the absolute victims. I do not know the death rate or life expectancy figures—again, I do not think that anyone does—but I do know that large numbers of them die and large numbers of them live terrible lives. What kind of adults will children brought up in such an environment turn out to be? Those who have read ““Lord of the Flies”” by William Golding will have an idea of the horrible situation that those children have grown up in. Logic tells me that if the only life they have known is of begging, dealing, violence, drugs and prostitution, when they become adults they will become the abusers of the next generation of children. We create a cycle of depression and violence and the horror that goes with it. I want to see enormous change in Congo. Everyone is agreed on the need for that. Some of it can be produced by overseas aid, but, above all, serious political structures that run public services and administration, and that are honest, open and accountable, must be developed. They have been sadly lacking in Congo for most of the past 40 years, and even those who are lucky enough to escape to another country and survive somewhere else suffer from the accompanying disruption. I have also visited the neighbouring countries of Rwanda and Angola on different occasions. They have also gone through huge levels of disruption and, in many ways, are still dislocated societies. One thing that appeared to be developing quite well in Angola was a fostering system for the large numbers of orphans by way of a small amount of state support given to foster parents. I do not know whether that happens in Congo, but we could look at that area. If we do not, hundreds of thousands of children could grow up in an awful environment, which then creates the cycle of deprivation and violence from which they thought they were escaping in the first place. I thank the House for having this debate, because the least we can do is support what the Government are trying to do by giving aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Above all, we hope that the politicians in Congo who are lucky enough to be elected to local authorities, the presidency or some other body understand that they have a duty to start delivering the wealth of Congo to the people of Congo.