The dilemma of life on the street amid lockdown

We all rush from wherever we are to reach our homes before the 7pm curfew clocks. Between then and 6.30am, no one is expected on the streets. But what do you do when the street, perhaps a veranda, or a ramshackle structure in the city, is where you sleep—your home?

That is the dilemma street dwellers find themselves in since President Museveni imposed a 7pm-6.30am curfew, among other measures to contain the escalation of coronavirus three weeks ago.

Umar Ahimbisibwe speaks with calm, you would not think he is a street dweller, if he does not insist on chewing khat as he faces our camera. He pulls off his cap, not to flaunt his fresh crew cut, decorated with a sharp pencil line, rather to show the wounds on the head, neck and his upper, arm which he alleges were inflicted on him by Local Defence Unit personnel (LDUs).

“The President said if someone is in his home, leave them alone but the LDUs always beat us whenever they find us on the verandas or in our shanty houses,” he says. He is a resident of Kisenyi, Kampala.

“These are our homes. What do they want us to do? Where do they want us to go?
Ahimbisibwe has another concern. “They also lie to the [street children] that they are going to give them food, but it is a trap to lock them up. Is that fair?” he says.

Rashid Hassan, 18, the tallest and perhaps the loudest among them, picks up the conversation with more agitation in his tone.

“I was beaten and my teeth can no longer chew,” he says. “It seems those guys want to push us to the limits. Yes, you want to enforce the law but why demolish someone’s capital?” he says.

Hassan says he has grown up here and does anything for a penny. He has been carrying sacks of potatoes for the vendors in the nearby markets. Daily, he saved Shs2,000, with a Sacco. From the savings, he bought a weighing scale at Shs50,000, which eased his metal scrap business.

“Recently, LDUs beat me, crashed my scale and took my Shs150,000,” he adds.
Hassan also has a bruise that cuts across the nose bone to his left eye.

“Even one of our friends was admitted to Kiruddu [Hospital] with skull injuries but we have no means to cater for him,” he says.

Kampala Central Division mayor Charles Sserunjogi says he confronted police to stop the brutality on “the homeless children.”

But police challenged him: “‘How should we handle them when they are violent and attacking people on the streets?’”

Mr Musa Ssekalema, who has been in Kisenyi for more than 30 years, says: “I am mostly worried about the street children. How are they going to survive? They are hungry and attacking people for survival. I wish they could keep them in one place. Otherwise……..”

The streets mean everything to these homeless children. It is not only home but also their market place. Some are porters who carry luggage in taxi and bus parks. Some sort beans and cereals in millers.

Some fetch water for vendors. Some collect and sell metal scrap and plastic bottles. But the Covid-19 lockdown blocked almost all those revenue channels, threatening their survival.

Violence is inevitable
The plastic water tank in Kisenyi Blue Room Zone is locked in a gate. Only the tap is accessible to the public.

“If we leave it open, the goons will steal it,” said the vice chairperson of Kisenyi, Sulaiman Mabira, adding: “Since businesses were closed, this became a red zone. Residents cannot even buy a chapatti, fearing goons. Most of them, from other zones, will grab their money.”

But Hassan says: “Some street children are jumpy. Some tease passersby, especially women. When they make an alarm. LDUs come with rage and instead of trying to keep order, they make the situation violent.”

Half the solution
Some policy makers, we learnt, were suggesting taking these children to Kampiringisa and other remand homes but many rejected the proposal saying it doesn’t solve the dilemma.

“What if you export them to a home when some are already infected with coronavirus?” some reasoned.

Mr Sserunjogi suggests the children be quarantine, tested, and taught about social-distancing to protect them against Covid-19.

The first day he rallied the children, the mayor says, about 130 children followed him on foot from Kisenyi to Nakivubo Blue Primary School.

“When we sought their views, some preferred being rejoined with their families. Some wanted vocational education and a few preferred remaining on the streets,” Mr Sserunjogi says.

“Three had body temperatures above 40°C but subsequent tests proved negative of Covid-19,” he says.

But more was needed to quarantine these homeless souls. “We also needed social workers to train and counsel them,” he adds.

Meanwhile, some days, Shule Foundation, a charity by American entrepreneur Jackie Wolfson, served the little ones posho or rice with beans in a kaveeras.

Members of the response team including representatives from Kampala City Council Authority, the central government, area local leaders, and organisations dealing with street children, share views and strategies on two WhatsApp forums.

The Nakivubo programme, Sserunjogi says, is a quick response to the Covid-19 crisis, but its cardinal goal is to have a comprehensive plan to totally reform these children.

“Initially, KCCA committed Shs10m, government also gave us 600kg of maize flour and 150kg of beans.”

Since last Thursday, 200 street children (five girls) are quarantined at Nakivubo Blue Primary under the watch of social workers and police.

Among other partners, Sserunjogi says, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) offered 1,500kgs of maize flour, 20kgs of milk powder, 50kgs of porridge flour, and 20 litres of cooking oil.
The Ministry of Health offered 10 bales of mosquito nets; Abaana Ministries donated 250 2.5 inch mattresses.

“We have so far 50 per cent of what we needed for the project, and I thank all the partners,” Mr Sserunjogi says.

For three meals—including porridge breakfast, lunch and supper, the mayor says, they need 170kg of flour every day. Kisenyi Health Centre treats some of the infections, tuberculosis, malaria, wounds, and fractured limbs due to accidents and street beatings.

The focus, Sserunjogi reiterates, is on children below 18. Not women, or homeless adults like Rashid Hassan.

He says the homeless adults should count on the food rations from government.

But that is just half the puzzle solved because…Hassan had the previous day told us: “I swear, I would rather slaughter a dog and eat it than wait for that food by LDUs.”

It is not hypothetical, a leader in a neighbouring zone told us that days ago, street children killed a dog and ate it. “That food is just a bait,” Ahimbisibwe adds. “They want to throw us in confinement.”

And besides food, how are the street children protected against the coronavirus threat?
Sserunjogi says KCCA sends teams to sensitise them on precautionary measures like social distancing and hand washing. “But honestly, many don’t follow them.” Food and freedom from LDU torture is all that matters to them.

Reaping from bus trips
As a sub-turnboy with Star Link Buses, Isaac Kamukama, 20, would have reached his village in Kanungu District without paying a penny.

Life was good when he earned about Shs40,000 whenever he worked on two bus trips. But since the buses were stopped, he has been wondering what to eat, drink and just before he got the answers to such basic questions of survival, LDUs swept in with waves of violence.

He is happy that nowadays they get a meal—posho with groundnut paste, mixed with mukene; soap to clean their clothes and wash their hands, and a place to sleep—three per room in a building nearby—when night falls.

“At least now we get some food but imagine what we would do if these people did not come to help us?” Kamukama wonders.

Sserunjogi says these ones also must get food rations from government. “It took more than 10 days for these vulnerable poor to see the food. And it is not enough,” he says.

By 6.15pm, another only identified as Nanyanzi, told us they must be inside their rooms to avoid trouble with curfew enforcers.

“They could move everywhere around town to get what to eat at a particular time. They are not used to like prisoners. But what do they do if they cannot fend for themselves?” she says.

More Kisenyi mess
Gerald Agaba is in triple jeopardy. He is hungry, jobless and in ill-health. He speaks in a very weak, disgusted pitch. His pale skin is peeling off.

“Tonkuba bifaananyi,” he stops our photographer from taking his pictures. Weeks before business was banned due to coronavirus, the Kisenyi Central Zone resident was knocked down by a boda boda. His left knee has deep wounds, movement is hard. The people responsible have dodged him. He also has to return to hospital for another illness that makes him urinate through a catheter.

Shafik Kasozi, a colleague with whom he worked at the Namirembe Road Taxi Park, just helps with food handouts. He too no longer earns.

“Here we survive on God’s mercy,” says Joseph Ssemugenyi, a resident of Blue Room, a nearby zone in Kisenyi.

“Government neglected us and this crisis has made matters worse. We are waiting for government food but it might find us dead. People do not even care about washing hands, keeping distance, nothing,” he says.

Begging on empty streets
Before President Museveni banned public transport, Yasin Umani sent his 11 children and two wives back to Nebbi District. He stays alone in Katwe. With both legs deformed since birth, he cannot walk. Every morning, his friend rides him on a bicycle to King Fahad Plaza, where he waits for anyone to throw a coin or a note in his hands.

He pulls a green cotton mask below his chin. “That is how I support my family,” the 46-year-old, says with a babyish smile. “I could get about Shs10,000 but these days, life is hard. Few people are on the streets and no one wants to spend when they don’t earn.

Erias Mugerwa tells a similar story when I meet him on Nile Avenue, Kampala.
But begging on empty streets, they say, is better than staying home.

“Still, the little I get here, I cannot get it when I stay home,” he says.
With both hands deformed, the father of six with walks to and fro Nsambya daily to the street.
Umani and Mugerwa feel government has neglected people with disabilities in the Covid-19 crisis.

“Even if government gives me the food, I have to beg for money to buy charcoal, soap, but no one is considering our special-needs status,” Umani says.

“Not even my area chairman has told me how to register for that food,” Mugerwa says. “Anyway, I hope they give it to my wife home but…”

But Umani might miss the food because when we followed the distributors in Kisenyi last week, they never give it to closed doors.

Earning from bus terminal
Life of a porter. For the last six years, Living Byomuhangi, has earned his daily bread as a porter in Kisenyi Bus Terminal. When President Museveni issued anti-covid directives that limited business in the country, Byomuhangi sent his wife and child back to Rukungiri District.
Before he knew it, the President also banned public transport. “I wanted to go to my village but when buses were stopped, they never returned. Someone had disappeared with my little savings. And here I am homeless, clueless.”
We found him washing a T-shirt on a balcony of an old building in Kisenyi as his colleagues played cards to pass time. For the three weeks, this is where Byomuhangi and 37 others spend the day as they wait until the 7pm-6.30am curfew begins.
Most of them say they used to sleep in buses at night or in bars and working during day. Now with the buses parked away in garages, they are not only deprived of jobs, but also shelter.
First, they slept on this balcony without permission, the local council one chairperson, Charles Oboth, allegedly brought LDUs to beat them up as idle criminals.
“But when we understood their ordeal, we feel it is our duty to help them with the little we can. They are good people. If we neglect them, they can spread the virus or resort to violence in pursuit of survival,” says Proscovia Nanyanzi, the women chairperson of Kisenyi Parish 1.

Impending Challenge: Government tasked
Last year, the executive director of Africhild Centre Uganda, Mr Timothy Opobo, said to address the current street children crisis, government must first tackle the factors which push children to the streets, among which is poverty.

Mr Opobo said while KCCA passed an Ordinance to curb the influx of children on city streets, it is a short term solution. What is required is a sustainable measure. He challenges authorities to first crack the whip against parents, whom he said send their children on streets to beg.

“At a macro level, government must go back to the drawing board and address poverty. Our population growth is at 3.2 per cent annually hence we are multiplying at a faster rate. We need to emphasise manageable families because giving birth to children you can’t look after means you are creating a very big crisis ahead and the end products will be street children,” he said.

He implored government to invest in social protection, which he said would help in addressing the current crisis of street children in Kampala.

Survey
Findings from a recent enumeration of street children by Retrak Uganda in collaboration with the Gender ministry and Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) showed that there are more than 2,600 children living on streets aged seven and 17 years, while 1,410 children aged seven and 17 years are estimated to be working on streets.

Last year, a Daily Monitor reporter visited different parts of the city to understand the plight of street children. Their stories were diverse and sad; tales of despair, misery and occasional hope.

Some of the youngsters were abandoned on streets while still toddlers by their parents and had since beaten the odds to make ends meet.

At dawn, they start the day with great expectations. However, their main worry was violence which they said was both physical and sexual.

Kisenyi Slum in Kampala Central Division is home to many disadvantaged families, with majority of children living on streets.

Most of the children do menial jobs to eke a living. However, they say their employers exploit them by giving them heavy workload with paltry pay and when they protest, they are allegedly beaten up.

“I used to collect water for some restaurants in Kisenyi but I was always paid little money. For instance, I could collect 10 jerrycans of water but end up being paid only Shs500. Most of the people we work for give us little money because they know that we are very desperate,” said Roy Kalyango, one of the street children.

The 12-year-old claimed he endured several beatings from her former employer, who accused him of asking for a lot of money. Some of the children also said their parents ask them to remit specified amounts of money every day and if they fail to raise the money on a bad day, they are beaten up.

Daily Monitor was, however, unable to corroborate these claims since the mothers found on the streets declined to speak.

We also established that there are brothels in Kakajo, Kisenyi, where some of the street female children were sexually abused. Our attempts to gain access to the brothels were prevented by well-built men whom we were told broker deals to look for girls and bring them to the brothels.

The plight of street children now remains critical with the lockdown in place.