Time to act on ‘anamasikini’

When one moves about the streets of Blantyre and Lilongwe, the sight of street beggars is not rare. They are everywhere. These street beggars start begging while young as they go about helping their parents, who have challenges with eyesight, move about.

With time, the children grow on the streets and come to be known as ana a anamasikini. Now, these ones are children who are able bodied, but due to challenges on the streets, they have such thick skins and are ruthless. This is so, because not many can donate to well bodied young men and women who keep roaming around the streets looking for free things.

But here is the thing; these are children who were born on the streets, they do not have any form of education and are basically growing on the streets living a life of hand to mouth.

As a society, we have seen these children grow and we have not done anything about them.

Now, we have a crisis on our hands. The children have now grown and are ruthless. They keep robbing people in broad daylight and harassing women. We have heard so many stories of these children, now little criminals, on so many occasions. Some of the stories are so heartbreaking that people have lost their lives.

On two occasions, these little criminals demanded my money, phone and fearing to be harmed, I just obliged. I know that my experience is not unique. So many other people have experienced similar, if not worse.

Now, as we continue on this path, what is the government doing about it? What is the government doing about the dozens of children who go about begging with their parents? What we ignore is that while their children are currently too young to be a danger, the fact is that eventually they will become ruthless with time.

I think it is time the government stopped lip service and act. It is time that the welfare offices took up the matter of children roaming around the streets of the cities seriously. They need to be taken off the streets and be rehabilitated. Just like the government puts its resources together for developmental projects, it is equally important to put resources together for this situation.

I know with limited resources, the argument might be that we have more pressing matters. But trust me, this is a very urgent matter. These little humans roaming around the streets will one day become so ruthless that it will be impossible to even go shopping in daylight.

Government and other responsible agencies need to treat this matter with urgency.