Children in danger : Working on the street

In most countries children aged 10 would be safely at school, not selling bags of water or washing cars on the street. But in West Africa, which accounts for half of the world’s 26 poorest countries, the streets are full of working children. “I used to be in the second year of primary school,” said Alpha Ibrahima, who is only nine. “But because my parents are very poor I had to give up school to sell plastic bags of mineral water in the bus stations in Conakry.” Analysts say Guinea, though mineral-rich and conflict-free, is at risk of becoming West Africa’s next failed state. Its leaders have been in office for three decades, its economy is in dire straits. As the country’s currency crumbles, teachers are earning the equivalent of a 50-kilogramme sack of rice per month. But children such as Ibrahima cannot even go to school. “My parents say I’m the only one capable of earning enough money for everyone,” he says as he offers travellers a bag of water. According to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, Guinea has the world’s 22nd highest mortality rate for children under five. Save The Children says 11 percent of under-5s suffer from moderate or severe malnutrition. Tiny Alhassane, whose T-shirt once was white, spends each and every day on the streets of the Guinean capital, a city where children who do go to school gather at the airport at nights to finish their homework. It is one of the few places in Conakry to have a steady supply of electricity. “I spend all my time here, in the city centre,” he told IRIN, “selling vegetables during the day and at night I wash cars for a few coins. When my eyelids start to close I go home where my family’s waiting for me and for the next day’s spending money.” Save The Children ranks Guinea a poor 150th of 167 countries in its Children’s Index of the best to worst places for a child to be born. Aboubacar is one of several small boys who work as criers in the crowded streets of the poor suburb of Bambeto, finding customers for the broken-down taxis of Conakry. “I’ve been doing this for seven months,” he said. “My parents live far away in the village and I came to live at my uncle’s place in Conakry so I could go to school. “At the beginning my relatives were very nice, but over the months our relations have soured. Now they make me pay half of the monthly water bill so I’ve had to stop school to pay for it.” Working nearby selling iced water, small Mariama too said she was being exploited by an aunt. “If I don’t go home each night with at least 7,000 Guinea francs she beats me up.”