By Gum Makur Gum, Rumbek, South Sudan
Tuesday, February 01, 2022 (PW) — Many of our kids are living in the street today due to a lack of parental care, family breakdown, political crises, and natural disasters that could cause displacement and loss of lives. These factors will also vary over time, such as poverty, all leading to an increase in the number of street children in South Sudan.
There are two main causes of the phenomenon of street children. The first is the economic stress and poor conditions that families face due to industrialization and urbanization. The second cause is a change in the traditional family structure, especially when women become the main contributors to households’ economies. These Street children are part of society and must not be thrown out of society for their living, earning and future.
As a country, it is, therefore, imperative to invest in our future generations. The success of this country in the decades to come will lie in them. When I was a kid, my mother, who happened to be a farmer, told me to always preserve seeds for the next season. If you don’t take care of today’s seeds, you will have nothing to cultivate in the future, and this is exactly what is happening to human beings.
One can take a walk through the streets of Rumbek and elsewhere in the country or stop at places where these street children can be found; the scene seen is heartbreaking. You can see so many little kids holding a half-cut used plastic container of water. If you pay attention to what is inside, you will notice a yellowish substance in the container section.
The kids frequently put the container in their mouth and inhale the glue inside, a very toxic chemical substance used mainly to repair shoes. These kids are between the ages of 7-18 years. When you get closer to where they are, they look sadly pale, dizzy, and about to pass out as a result of getting high from the inhalation of the toxic substance. They use different ways to ask for money and sometimes collect leftover food at waste-collection centres or in restaurants.
The toxic chemical they are inhaling is not a controlled substance. Hence, these street kids can easily have access to hardware stores and dealers who are older in age and pay less for it. Inhaling glue is a very damaging practice and causes permanent damage to the kid, including brain damage, paralysis, kidney and liver failure, and even sudden death. It is alarming that thousands of kids who are living in the streets of Rumbek and elsewhere in the country are inhaling glue in mass, and one would ask if it has reached an epidemic level.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that inhaling a substance like glue can have immediate and long-term effects.
The immediate effects include happy giggling, relaxation, sleepiness, poor muscle coordination, and slurred speech, among other things. Hallucinations and fits can occur with heavy use. The most immediate danger to the user includes sudden sniffing death. Suffocation could occur as a result of suffocation. Regular long-term effects as a result of regular long-term use included: nose bleedings, rashes around the mouth and nose, loss of appetite, and lack of motivation. Some of the solvents are toxic to the liver, kidney, heart, and brain.
While at marketplaces where these kids stay one of them explains their addiction to this substance as a means to forget hunger and resist the brutal coldness at night. Street children face difficulties in providing themselves with good sources of food, clean drinking water, health care services, toilets and bath facilities, and adequate shelter.
Many of these children are affected by the declining standards of living. As a result, they find themselves in the street bagging or polishing public shoes to earn income to sustain themselves and their families. It is inevitable that many unemployed people who have attained the age of eighteen or above can easily resort to criminal violence as a means of accessing material goods. Even for individuals who are gainfully employed, the cost of living has generally outstripped their incomes.
The lives of street children can only be improved in one way: by getting them off the street and giving them safe homes to live in, food to eat, and access to basic education. A big rehabilitation effort needs to be established to detox the addicts and integrate them back into the community. Another way of solving this probe could be sending them to school, training them in life skills, job creation, housing, and some facilities like sports venues and recreation centers.
The writer is a teaching assistant at Rumbek University of Science and Technology in Rumbek, Lakes State, South Sudan and can be reached via gummakur75@gmail.com. The views expressed here are solely mine and do not necessarily represent the views of Rumbek University of Science and Technology.
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