Street children in Mafikeng, North-West Province: a qualitative study of social experiences

Abstract

AbstractThe general perception, on the part of South African society, is that street children are a major social menace. Yet the reality is that, street children are a vulnerable group that suffer both psychological and physical- violence including sexual abuse. This qualitative study investigated the social experiences of street children in Mafikeng, North-West Province in South Africa. Data were collected using focus group discussions made up of a total of 20 participants aged 10-19 years, and selected using convenience sampling. Three themes were extracted using the consensual qualitative method and constant comparison to establish credibility and trustworthiness. The results of the study revealed three major themes (i.e. reasons for abandoning home: life in the streets, and the desire to go back home), and three sub-themes (risks and challenges encountered, regrets, and the desire for rehabilitation and schooling). Recommendations included the need for psychological interventions among this group, the need further for research, and the need to use probability sampling techniques in future studies, as this might provide a more comprehensive picture of the situation.Keywords:Street children, social experiences, Mafikeng, Africa, vulnerable, psychological interventionIntroductionThe rapid increase in the number of homeless or street children in the cities of Africa and in the North West Province of South Africa in particular, is a matter of grave concern. Many street children are feared by members of the public because of their general physical presentation in public. They are usually dressed in rags, are unkempt, live from hand to mouth, and roam the street all day long. These children are more visible around market places, vehicle parking areas, busy road junctions, outside cinema houses, and other busy public places. At night, they sleep in uncompleted buildings, at bus stops, under bridges, in abandoned vehicles, in public gardens and parks or simply in the open. They also experience economic challenges and psychological trauma, emanating from physical violence, which includes police brutality and sexual abuse perpetrated by members of society.Street life may result in the children becoming vulnerable to exploitation, which in turn may make them get hooked to drugs such as marijuana, and glue. Street children often engage in more than one type of economic activity to make ends meet. Sometimes they engage in seasonal work in which the earnings are very low. Often the activities which they engage in are unlawful or morally inappropriate. According to Adisa (1994), street children engage principally in petty crimes such as shoplifting and pick-pocketing; they seldom take part in serious crime like robbery, car hijacking or murder. Glue-sniffing and other forms of drug abuse and prostitution also tend to be part of the street subculture (Jansen, Richter, & Griesel, 1992). The involvement in a myriad criminal activities leads to the propensity of street youths to graduate from, what Diop and Faye (1997) have termed a 'pre- delinquent state' into a state of criminality. Street Children may also engage in prostitution and homosexuality, thereby putting themselves at serious risk of contracting and spreading HIV and AIDS, in addition to other health hazards (Kruger and Richter, 2003). It is because of the potential risks they pose to society at large that the situation of street children needs to be given far greater attention than has hitherto been the case.According to Ross (1991), the majority of street children in South Africa are black and normally aged between 13 and 14 years - a legacy of the apartheid period. However, Van Niekerk (1990) argues that it is unrealistic to explain the situation of street children in South Africa on the basis of a political system alone; rather the problem should be considered holistically. While Le Roux (1993), identified family violence, parental alcoholism, abuse, poverty and personal reasons as to why many children live on the streets, Keen (1990) identified broken homes, alcoholism, violence and desertion by family as some of the factors contributing to street children. …