Misconception about street children in Nigeria: Street children and their parents alone should be held responsible for the former’s misfortune.

Chi Mezie Writes

There are two major culprits fingered once the issue of street children is mentioned – the street child and his/her parents – by so many persons in Nigeria. A lot people push this narrative down the throats of others and most times, unfortunately, influence and block the needed public debate that should be campaigned for vigorously in order to once and for all deal decisively with the issue of street children in the country. To these persons in this school of thought, “if a street child/teen is not enjoying the streets, he/she would have found the way to his parents and home, and if the parents had been prudent in thinking as it concerns their economic capability before giving birth to these kids on the streets, they would have made the smart decision of giving birth according to their financial capability; therefore, the problem of the street children is NOT THE PROBLEM OF EVERYBODY”.

Unfortunately, this is the type of narrative that will be a leading factor in converting the street child/teen of today into a street urchin of tomorrow, whom will end up terrorizing everybody, including the promoters of this misconception, and constitute great security problem to everybody.
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Nobody can claim ignorance of issues of street children because they are very visible on the streets. Though the blame on the parents cannot be exonerated for their huge failure towards the street child, but everybody, society, and government generally cannot also be exonerated too. Yes, their parents failed them squarely but we all equally failed them when we decided to look the other way, blame them too even though they are the greatest victims, succumb to the above misconception and not rise to DEMAND for action from government to mitigate their issues, but the major failure goes to the government for not having or implementing the different social welfare policies that ought to shield the child from finding refuge on the streets.