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DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children

Sisay Abebe

ADDIS ABABA, Sep 9 2008 (IPS) - When the school bell rings, Alemtsehay and her three younger sisters rush home to change out of their school uniforms and into tattered clothes to go out begging around Bole Road, one of Addis Ababa's smarter areas.

Accompanied by their five-year -old brother, they roam the streets asking passersby for money. They are each expected to bring home at least 10 birr (one dollar) a day.

"I prefer to beg around Bole, which is far from my home, because I don't want my classmates to see me and mock me as a pauper," says 14-year-old Alemtsehay, who is a grade five student.

Alemtsehay is one of the 5 million children in Ethiopia who have been left orphaned or vulnerable from AIDS. Many of them are living on the streets, sometimes making a living as sex workers.

Alemtsehay's family fell into poverty after their father died of AIDS seven years ago. Her mother is also HIV positive and cannot support her children – or two other children who joined the family after their own mother died of AIDS.

For Alemtsehay, begging is degrading but she has no other alternative to get money, feed the family and keep herself in school. At night they are harassed by men who want to use them for sex, thus exposing them to HIV.

"When you try to solve one of your problems you get caught up in another. I am now in the dilemma of starving or getting sick; some of my friends on the streets have ended up as mothers," she says.

One of these street children is Berhane Tesfaye, 16, who has a three month old baby. She conceived it with her boyfriend, another street child whom she calls her protector as he has defended her from the rougher elements on the street.

Berhane and her friend Haimanot Teklay (who is also pregnant), live only for today. They don't go to school, and spend their days smoking marijuana and chewing khat, a mildly addictive stimulant used across the Horn of Africa.

Alemtsehay and her sisters are among the lucky few: even though they are begging on the streets, they are able to attend school. According to the UN Development Programme, only 34 percent of Ethiopian children attend school.

Ethiopia has set itself the goal of education for all by 2015, but if it is to achieve this, it needs to link education policies to broader poverty reduction strategies.

An international study of childhood poverty entitled ‘Young Lives’ has found that about a quarter of all Ethiopian children are involved in the work force. On average, these children work almost six hours a day. As a result even those who are in school have no time for homework, are frequently absent and often abandon school altogether.

In trying to capture children's own perspectives of their daily lives, The Young Lives project – which examines the causes and effects of childhood poverty – gave children cameras and sent them out to take their own pictures. The result is images that tell what it is really like to be in their shoes – the work they do, the environment they live in, their experience of schooling. The project shows how children can provide valuable insights into their own lives. / Credit: Photovoice

The study, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development and co-ordinated by Oxford University, examines childhood poverty by tracking the changing lives of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over a 15-year period. It collects information not only on their material and social circumstances, but also on their perspectives of their lives and aspirations for the future, set against the realities of their communities.

By following two groups of children in each country (2000 children who were born in 2001-02, and 1000 children who were born in 1994-95) they gain insights into every phase of childhood. The younger children are being tracked from infancy to their mid-teens and the older children through into adulthood, when some will become parents themselves.

When this is matched with information gathered about their parents, it will reveal much about the intergenerational transmission of poverty, how families on the margins move in and out of poverty, and the policies that can make a real difference to their lives.

Conflicting pressure

A particular focus of the study in Ethiopia is the relationship between agriculture and education polices. While it aims for universal education by 2015, government at the same time expects economic growth to be led by labour-intensive agricultural modernisation.

The researchers ask how these new policies affect children’s opportunity to study, and what impact changes in the rural labour market will have on household livelihood strategies and the invisible contribution of children’s labour.

A World Bank poverty assessment in 1999 showed that most Ethiopians felt they had a lower standard of living than in 1989, and rural inhabitants blamed the government’s shift to a free market economic policy. Small-scale farmers have been badly affected by the removal of subsidies on fertilisers, the rise in the cost of land tax and a drop in market prices for their produce.

The initial stages of 'Young Lives' research have shown that these changes have had a detrimental effect on child welfare. Parents explained that while they understood the value of education, they could no longer afford to send their children to school due to the downturn in the grain market and the loss of government support.

Ethiopia is a highly indebted country whose development has declined over the last decade. Much of Ethiopia’s population lives in poverty. The UNDP’s Human Poverty Index 2002 places Ethiopia 83rd amongst 85 developing countries. According to the United Nations Children's Fund 'State of the World's Children Report 2008', 12 percent of Ethiopian children die before they reach the age of five.

The recent drought has made the situation far more critical, with 75,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition and 4.6 million people experiencing food shortage.

According to Bekele Tefera, policy co-ordinator of Save the Children in Ethiopia, children deserve special attention from government particularly at times of economic crisis and drought. But at present, this assistance is minimal. A dedicated government body at the level of ministry or a commission to carry out programmes aimed at children is required.

Zelalem Adugna, HIV/AIDS advisor to Save the Children, says Ethiopia has a lot to learn from countries like Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Namibia which have successfully implemented policies for children.

When asked about the attention they get from government Alemtsehay and Berhane say there is no support. "Thanks to God, even if we suffer psychologically as child beggars, we get our daily subsistence from the passersby," says Alemtsehay.

* With additional reporting by Kathryn Strachan in Johannesburg.