CHILDREN-CUBA: Kids Skip School to Work the Streets

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 15 1996 (IPS) - While visitors to Cuba don’t have to step around swarms of youngsters sleeping rough on the pavements, that unfortunately is the case in some other Latin American cities, children here are increasingly working the streets.

The children usually simply beg from tourists or wipe a cloth across the windscreen of a car at traffic lights in the hope of receiving a few coins for the job but local authorities are concerned with the growing problem of Cuban children playing truent from school. In Old Havana, where the problem is most widespread, the local Social Prevention Commission logged 2,233 cases of children skipping classes in the first half of 1996, up from 2,027 in the same period last year.

Authorities also have begun to take measures against children begging which, until recently, was limited to isolated cases of children asking sailors for chewing gum.

“A large proportion of these kids have economic difficulties in their homes, and lack social and family attention,” Lazara Borrayo, a government official, told the CH-TV channel.

Children now ask tourists for money or goods — such as candy or pens and pencils and offer to wash or guard parked cars. The Centre for Youth Studies (CESJ), reported that pestering tourists is the preferred occupation of most of the kids. A recent survey by that organisation indicates that a majority of children who try to make a little money on the streets are boys aged five to 11.

“I have three brothers and sisters. My mom works all day, and my dad hasn’t shown up for a long time. I’m the oldest. Someone has to bring in some money,” said 11-year-old Alejandro, who asks tourists for loose change in Old Havana.

In spite of the impact of the economic crisis on the local population’s standard of living, CESJ experts blame the growing phenomenon on parents.

“If children come home with a little money and the parents don’t ask where they got it, the kids think they are contributing to the well-being of the family and keep on doing it,” said Clemente Quintana, a member of the Havana Social Prevention Commission.

According to the CESJ survey, the parents of children who panhandle or work in the streets tend to be divorced or unemployed, absent from their homes or unaware of the whereabouts of their kids. But others tolerate their children’s activities or even encourage them.

Meanwhile, 52.3 percent of those interviewed blamed schools for not keeping adequate watch over students. A full 80.9 percent of the kids in the streets are behind in their schoolwork, or are in special centres for children with behaviour problems.

“School cannot be a substitute for the family. Our duty is to contribute to the formation children receive in their homes, not to serve” as surrogate parents, said Daniel Mesa, a primary school principal.

But Mayra Abreu, one of the authors of the CESJ study, said that although schools are not chiefly responsible for the phenomenon, “they do allow kids to play truant and look for tourists.”

Cuba’s penal code stipulates sanctions for parental neglect and prohibits child labour.

Sources at the Social Prevention Commission say that when a child is found on the streets for the first time, authorities seek to determine whether the family is in need of economic help or employment. Parents whose kids are repeat “offenders” are fined or sanctioned by the courts.

It is a parental responsibility to meet the material needs of children, which “often go unmet, not due to economic problems, but because parents give priority to their own needs,” said commission member Eneida Hernandez.

Members of the Social Prevention Commission, which is made up of community organisations, government authorities and outside experts, said stepped-up controls have somewhat curbed the phenomenon in several of Havana’s toughest neighbourhoods.

Lieutenant Candido Quintana, a member of the Operative Group of Minors, told CH-TV that although “in Old Havana we find around 40 kids a week from this area, and 20 who come in from other places,” the phenomenon is on a decline.

But local experts warn that figures that point to a decline are misleading, because most of the kids have simply shifted their area of operation to avoid stepped-up police controls in downtown areas.

The problem will not be solved through repressive measures, according to the CESJ’s Mayra Abreu, because “penalising parents or physical punishment of kids by their families do not provide significant results. The key is changing kids’ behaviour, which is an enormous task.”