Beneath the country’s cities’ dazzling streetlights lies a hidden darkness as a study has unveiled rape and sodomy cases among street children.
Titled Factors Associated with Access and Utilisation of Sexual Abuse Emergency Healthcare Services Among Street Children, the study courted around 20 street girls and boys who were abused between 2022 and 2023 in Zomba.
One boy recalled his friend’s abuse: “He gave him chips, took him to a hill, told him to take off his clothes and sodomised him.”
BMC Health Services Research, a medical journal with a global reach, has published the research.
It does not conceal the children’s identities as they are above 18.
The children describe how they were dragged into dark corners where their innocence was stolen.
Their predators are often their peers who turn on them with heartless cruelty.
“I was raped by the boys in town. They beat me up, closed my mouth and did what they wanted,” shared one of the children who participated in the research.
Children’s rights advocates say although the study targeted Zomba, it reflects a national plight of vulnerable street children.
For girls, the report further reveals, that survival means enduring transactional sex—exchanging their bodies for food, money or protection.
Promises of payment or safety often lead to betrayal, beatings and further despair as revealed by one girl: “Sometimes they beat us when we ask for money after.”
The physical toll is devastating. The research points out that many children suffer from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV ang Aids.
One victim shared: “I started feeling unwell and getting sick often. When I got tested, I discovered I was HIV positive.”
The emotional scars are equally severe with many describing overwhelming feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness.
“It affected me badly because that was the time my future was destroyed,” one child said in the study published by BioMed Central Health Services Research.
Despite Malawi adopting the World Health Organisation guidelines for emergency care for sexual abuse victims—including HIV post-exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), emergency contraceptive pills and STI treatment—the study found that street children rarely benefit.
Some of the researchers, Susan Kacheyo and Lot Nyirenda, found that
shame and fear of stigma often lead these children to suffer in silence, too afraid to seek help or share their experiences.
Misconceptions about where to seek help persist, with some believing police stations or pharmacies are their only options, the study reveals.
They advised that “for successful policy implementation, it is crucial to include health policies that specifically address the health needs of street children and involve them in the decision-making processes related to interventions”.
In his reaction, psychiatrist and Physician Assistants Union of Malawi president David Chomba warned that the abused children are at risk of suffering mental health complications such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
“It is important to bring such harassed children to mental health professionals for various therapies,” he said.
Malawi is party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Article 20(1) of the convention obligates Malawi and other member States to provide special protection and assistance to children in need, including street children.
It reads: “A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State.”
Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare had not responded to our questionnaire seeking its comment on the study’s outcome and its commitment to meeting the obligations set out in the UN convention.
However, the Coalition for the Empowerment of Women and Girls chairperson Hellen Chabunya says the study findings expose government’s failure to protect children.
She said: “The failure to protect street children is a failure of humanity. We must ask ourselves as a nation: What kind of society do we want to be?
“If we allow these injustices to persist, government is complicit in their suffering. I call on the government to prioritize the rights and safety of street children in its development agenda. This is not charity; it is justice.”
Chabunya further called for political will, societal courage and unwavering commitment to end the abuse of street children and give them the future they deserve.
She advised government to deploy mobile clinics to bring health services directly to the streets and enforce strict laws against the exploitation and abuse of street children.
“It must also launch nationwide campaigns to educate children and the public about the importance of reporting abuse and the availability of emergency health services,” she said.
childrenCentre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance executive director Victor Mhango said earlier the street children’s suffering is a result of government’s failure to provide safe homes
“The Department of Social Welfare, which is supposed to act as a guardian for these children, is not fulfilling its role. This, we hear, is due to a lack of funding.
“It is not surprising that they resort to drug abuse and crime,” he added.
Mhango called for serious investment in the construction of safe homes for street children.
“We don’t have such homes in this country. This is why the streets become their default refuge, despite being unsafe.
“Our organisation has recorded numerous cases of rape and other horrific acts committed against these children,” he said.
Malawi has about 15 000 homeless children living on the streets because of the poverty at home, family breakdown or HIV and Aids which has left an estimated 1.2 million orphans
