Street Selling Children Accuse Parents, But…

Poverty drives many children in Monrovia province into trade to support their families, but their activities out there are technically prohibited. Now they are complaining of aggressive behavior on the part of the municipal police. They also accused their parents of abusing their individual rights by sending them to sell in the streets, specifically between and among moving vehicles.

Early in the morning, children from various neighborhoods begin to arrive in Monrovia with one purpose: to sell. They sell almost everything from water, fried vegetables, and soft drinks to roasted peanuts, and many more wares. Given the poverty that the children face, their survival have remained at stake.

The boy is 15 years old, and has been a relaxed trader on the streets of for years. In the afternoon, as soon as he gets home from his Grade 8 school class, he is out on the streets selling.

“I sell to get money to support my studies, and also find food to eat. I live with my aunt, and she also sells,” he explains. The business is not very profitable, but he manages to sell a day, and make four to six hundred Liberia Dollars every day.

The main problem is that local legislation outlaw’s street trading. When they are caught, the vendor says, they are victims of violence, and hold their goods confiscated without any right of redress.

Says boy: “We sell here on the street. But the City police officers rip us off our assets, and do not give them back to us. I have no place to sell.” Twelve-year-old boy also says, he often has to run from the police. 

“In the morning I go to school, and in the afternoon, I sell Orange and Leone Star minutes. I come on the street to sell. They never caught me, because I run away and hide.”

 “What we have said is that we need to avoid issues that can contribute to this. For example, we must train children to be ready to enter the labor market when they are old enough. We are doing that, and will continue to do so.”

The boy noted that if the government can help them by talking to the commercial banking to barrow them some money that will enable us the needy time to survival.  

Children constitute 52 percent of the population. Child poverty levels are high, and about 22 percent of children between the ages of seven, and 15 work, according to my research.

In Liberia, there should not be any child needing protection, because every child should have a family, and a home, or protection from the public at all-times.

Don’t Put Children At Risk

Buying from, or giving money to street children only keep them on the streets surrounded in a cycle of poverty, but also denied them their basic global rights, and keeps them at risk for several reasons.

Child’s education is an investment in their potential, and paves the way for them to access successful employment when they become adults, with this basic right, and opportunity to learn, there is little hope of street children ever earning a decent salary when they are grown up.

According to statistics from the Liberia institute of statistics and Geo-information service (LIGIS), children create 52 percent of the population. Child poverty levels are high, and about 22 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 15 work.

Parents, meanwhile, should not allow children to sell on the streets; parents are advised to give the, their assigned rights.