Cape Town - A non-profit organisation that works with children in Wolwerivier has called for a collective approach to addressing the concerning increase in children taking to the streets to beg at traffic intersections.
After witnessing children whom she said she recognised from the community in Wolwerivier, Sunshine preschool founder Nikki Pretorius made a public call for residents living in suburbs neighbouring the community to support organisations working to provide safe spaces for children instead of giving them handouts and encouraging them to beg at traffic lights.
She said she had noticed the tendency of the growing group of children to hitch-hike out of their community to neighbouring areas to beg near shopping centres and at traffic lights for money, which they would then use to buy drugs and alcohol.
“I think if we all took an active stance not to give handouts to children begging on the streets, we would be best looking out for them. As it is now, what started as one or two children has grown into big groups of young children endangering themselves to get to these areas.
“It's sad to watch them do this. Having watched them grow up, they are like my nieces and nephews. It takes a village to raise a child, and I urge everyone to play a part by supporting kids in need through the correct systems,” she said.
Pretorius also said she has attempted to engage police and law enforcement to address the situation by having them check the shebeens that sell alcohol to underage children without much luck.
“It’s just like speaking to their parents who don’t do much. The child might be disciplined now, but tomorrow or next week they could be back to it again. The only thing left was to approach social workers to assist me, but this, unfortunately, is not as easy as it sounds.
“So in the meantime I thought it best to appeal to communities to not give these children handouts on the streets,” Pretorius said.
The Western Cape Department of Social Development said it also found responding to such incidents not easy.
Department spokesperson Joshua Chigome said: “Such cases are not easy to manage since the children often run away if they are approached by a social worker or police officer and if they are taken to a place of safety they are likely to try to abscond back to the streets.
“When the department receives reports of children begging on the streets, it dispatches a social worker to go to assess the child’s circumstances. In many cases such children need to be placed into secure care to receive the necessary specialised programmes to help them to rehabilitate and stop returning to the streets,” Chigome said.
While not affirming that it had noticed an increase in the number of children taking to affluent areas to beg, the Western Cape Street Children’s Forum (WCSCF) said that this did not mean these children had become less or that the underlying issues had disappeared.
WCSCF director Janice King said: “During the last two years, we have noticed a decrease in the number of children out on the streets begging. For us, this does not mean that these children are no longer struggling but that instead the underlying issues that had pushed them on to the streets have now been swept underground.
“They are still struggling with abuse and living in terrible situations most of the time,” said King.
The WCSCF works in support of a network of organisations working in partnership to create a co-ordinated and collaborative sector for children living, working or begging on the street.
The Cape Argus approached the Western Cape Children’s Commissioner for comment. She said that she was “indisposed at the moment”.