UNICEF-Report

Most of the information has been taken from the research "The Exodus, December 1998 - March 1999". UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Found and CAS, Catholic Action for Street children, embarked on this four-month study to discover the reasons that are leading more and more rural children to go to the towns and cities. You can download the complete report as a PDF-document from our download page.

1. Their life

UNICEF estimates that there are over 300 million children living on the streets around the world. They live in bad conditions, work long hours and often do difficult or dangerous work for their daily money. They eat poorly and sleep in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions. Whenever they fall ill, they have to spend their little earnings on self-medicated drugs. They are subject to harassment by elderly people. Many, particularly girls, resort to commercial sex work and because of their vulnerability and ignorance they are at great risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases or getting pregnant. Street children lack love and compassion and have matured beyond their years.

In Ghana, the fact there are street children is ascribed to poverty. Many factors that push children onto the street are linked to poverty and under-development. But poverty is not the only factor and it should not be used as an excuse to justify ignoring the problem. Between December March 1990 and 1998 UNICEF counted more than 15,000 children living on the streets in Accra who come from different villages all over Ghana. In the meantime, this number rose to 20,000.

2. Reasons

2.1 Poverty

2.1.1 Economy

Farming

Children have learnt from their parents that even if they work hard on the farm, they will never become rich. At best, they will survive from hand to mouth like their parents. The introduction of the free market system in the early 1980s has led to extreme price instability. The price for maize for example plummeted very much. Therefore it is not a surprise that many children consider farming as a last resort. As soon as the children in their villages feel that the only future their parents are planning for them is farming, they run to the cities.

Fishing

The seasonal nature of fishing and the desire of fishermen for their children to follow in their footsteps have devastating consequences on children's schooling and enrolment figures in costal villages throughout the Western Region. During the rainy season, between May and July, there is no fishing. Then men or women leave their villages often taking their children along. Those will return back one day and call others to follow them.

Industry

Poor roads and the lack of electrical power, potable water, communications and skilled labour in most of rural areas, discourages many investors. There is an economic base for trades such as tailoring, hairdressing, welding, carpentry... but it is very small. The rural communities do not have so many possibilities for all the adolescents who want to learn a profession. The little industry in rural areas employs outsiders. Probably the reason for this poor education system. This fact as well, encourages many adolescents to go to the cities and to look for a better future.

2.1.2 Education

The educational reform, introduced a decade ago, has led to significant increases in school enrolment rates, the construction of many new schools and greater numbers of children achieving higher levels of education. Firstly , the government and the politicians have assured that education is free and compulsory, so now the parents do not understand why they have to pay schoolfees, books and pencils. The government is responsible for providing the schools with textbooks, but even those are too few. For example, there are schools in which 50 students have to share 10 textbooks. Some parents do not understand the value of education or why they should waste so much money on it. And the parents who see the value of good education, have the money to send two children to school, but not four or five. A lot of teachers are untrained, especially in the rural areas, so they do not have the knowledge to teach and train the children well. They often try to control them by beating them. Many of the schools do not have electricity, running water, toilets or enough chairs and tables. A teacher has to teach 40-50 children in one class under these conditions! The qualified teachers often remain in the city. They are unwilling to accept the postings to rural areas under these conditions. The teacher's salary is very small, this forces the teachers to do another job as well or to teach special classes during the holidays. They are often tired and do not have the energy to teach well again or with joy.

The school system is a system of nine years Primary, then three years JSS (Junior Secondary School) followed by another three years SSS (Senior Secondary School) and then University. A lot of girls and boys in the rural areas stop school during Primary school, some complete JSS, but almost nobody has the chance to attend SSS, which makes it very difficult to get a good profession. In a lot of communities, teacher-parent relations are strained. The problem is that teachers often come from other regions to those where they teach, so they do not speak the same local language. They are viewed as outsiders. Because of poverty at home, the children often have to stop school.

2.2 Divorce, Death of parents, Neglect

Many officials believe that the growing exodus of children from the rural areas to the urban centres is linked to the breakdown of the nuclear family. When parents divorce or separate, only in a third of the cases do both remain in the same locality as their children. Neglect, irresponsibility and indifference is a serious problem, too. Many parents do not feel obliged to take care of their children: "God will look after them!"

2.3 Sexual abuse, Beatings, Violence

Many children leave home because of sexual abuse or other forms of punishment, beatings and violence. According to CAS research, 3 % of Accra's street children cite sexual abuse as the main reason for being on the street, while another 3% say that they left home because of regular beatings.

2.4 Others

There are a lot of other individual reasons why a child can leave his or her village. One thing appears in every case: The child has been hurt and feels neither satisfied, nor loved.

3 Pull Factors

Ghana's rural youth face a difficult choice. Either they choose to be a farmer or a fisherman in their village or they try to leave for the urban areas. The poor level of education level and the lack of employment explain why children move away from the village, but they can't explain why the number of childrren moving is increasing. Let's think about some factors!

3.1 Urbanisation

The exodus of children from the rural areas appears to be inextricably linked to urbanisation and the advent of consumerism.

3.2 Parents

Parental neglect not only causes children to drop out of school, but it also makes them realise early that they have to fend for themselves. Many children realise at a young age that they have to fight by and for themselves. Many parents, directly or indirectly , put pressure on their children to leave the village. 6% of the children on the streets of Accra have left home because of domestic or sexual abuse.

3.3 Electricity

The arrival of electricity has had a profound impact on rural communities and particularly on young people. In some villages, the number of children leaving has increased since the arrival of electricity. Television opens people's eyes to the modern world and they believe that the city has much more to offer. Just as Ghanaians want to travel to Europe to see it with their own eyes, children want to have a taste of city-life.

3.4 Relatives

Children and adolescents who have relatives in the city more often dream of leaving the village than those who have no one. Many parents even put all their hope on relatives in the city. They often do not realise that their urban brothers and sisters are struggling for their daily bread. In the best cases, the relatives in the city are able to provide accommodation, but apart from that the children have to fend entirely for themselves.

3.5 Peer Pressure

As soon as some children leave a village, often more and more children join them in the city. The new urban children go home for a short visit and tell the others how nice the city is, so that the others join with the illusion of finding a better life and a better future. The teenagers hardly speak about the hardship they experience on the streets.

3.6 Marriage

In the Northern Region , a lot of girls run to the cities in the South. When they marry between 15 and 17, brides are expected to possess certain items: such as pots, pans, bowls... traditional clothes and money. A girl who has nothing is considered a disgrace and everybody will laugh at her. So they go to the cities and try to get money to buy all these items. But most of the time they can not achieve this aim, because their earnings are too little.

3.7 Others like Ethnic Violence, Rural Underdevelopment, Adventure

In the past there were different fights between tribes over land and their rights to it. These fights made a lot of young people move to the South.

It is a fact that the rural areas have low levels of education, poor facilities and only a few employment opportunities. Many say that they want to go to Kumasi or to Accra to find something better.

Children are children and they are always looking for adventure and new experiences. This is normal. Rural children have only one way to escape the rigid views and rules imposed on them by their parents: to go as far away as possible, to disappear in the cities.

4 The Return

Some of the children and teenagers return back one day. Some return with few goods and little money and tell the others how well they were living in the city. Before they leave the city they buy Nike- shoes or expensive clothes so they can prove to their family that they were living better, which is often a big lie. Some go home to the North just to drop off babies they have had in the South or return home sick with chronic headaches, asthma or sexually transmitted diseases.

The children often leave the villages at an early age and do not learn the traditions and cultures of their own village. When they return from the South, they often disregard traditions and do not feel free in the villages again. Some of the elders pray that the teenagers will never return because of the bad influence they bring. For instance: they dress and wear their hair differently to the others in the village.

Often if the children don't succeed in the cities they prefer to remain on the street than to see their relatives again and feel ashamed. At least they think that poverty is less and opportunities are still better in the cities.

Adolescents often are unwilling to return because they are expected to bring money to the family which they do not have.