Zim’s tourism minister urges govt to act on street child beggars

By Wallace Mawire [caption id="attachment_35937" align="alignleft" width="300"] Dr Walter Mzembi[/caption] Zimbabwe’s tourism minister Dr Walter Mzembi has called on the government to facilitate shelter provision for children living and working in the streets so that increasing cases of child exploitation can be minimized. Mzembi said that children as young as one year or above in the country were being used as baits by adults to solicit for money in the streets. The children solicit for cash from motorists and tourists and most of them are now relegated to street work instead of going to school. Children living in the streets also face sexual abuse and exploitation. Mzembi made the remarks at the recent launch of a regional report for sub-Saharan Africa on the commercial exploitation of children in the travel and tourism sector. Dr Mzembi said that there was need for political will to deal with the menace of children begging on the streets, a problem which he described as an eyesore to the country. “Through commitment and political will, l believe our country can deal with the increasing problem of children begging on our streets and shelter can be found to accommodate the desperate children,” Mzembi said. He added that issues such as these at times need a bit of dictatorship to overcome them. He cited the example of Cuba where he said he has stayed and married there saying the country’s government has made strides in eradicating issues of such children by removing them from the streets through provision of decent shelter. The regional report launched in Harare focusing on country level research in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia provides an updated picture of sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism in sub-Saharan Africa and proposes a set of recommendations to further improve government, non-government and private sector responses to prevent and combat child abuse issues. In Zimbabwe, according to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Victim Friendly Unit, from January to September 2016, a total of 7279 cases of sexual offences against children were recorded. Another NGO in Harare, Childline dealing with issues of child abuse says that from January to June 2016, 6810 cases of child abuse were reported to the organisation, representing a 56% increase in comparison to the same period in 2015. Mzembi added that to show how much work needs to be done, it is estimated that combined homes in Zimbabwe which cater for vulnerable children can only take up to 5000 children annually against a yawning reality that there are about 1,8 million vulnerable children in the country.