Ministry fails to relocate street children as planned

By Our Reporter

The Commissioner of Youth and Children Affairs at the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development, Mondo Kyateka, has said that inadequate funding is a big challenge that has affected the relocation of street children in and around Kampala.

According to Mondo Kyateka, the operation needed Shs3.4 billion but government released only Shs1billion, which less than half the total amount needed to do the job.

Kampala Capital City Authority, together with ministry had planned to have all the city streets cleared of needy children by the end of 2019 but, now this is far from being realised with just three weeks remaining to the end year.

Recently, the state minister for youth and children affairs, Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi said over 700 children had been removed from the streets and taken to private homes although the responsibility for protecting and providing their daily needs lies in hands of the gender ministry.

The gender ministry puts the number of street children in Kampala at between 2000-10, 000 as of 2018.

A recent research by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) shows that the number of street children in Kampala has increased from 4000 in 1993 to 10,000. This represents a 70 percent increase.

Another research by KCCA shows that over 16 children troop to Kampala streets every day, with 80 percent of these reportedly from Napak district, a sub region in Karamoja in North eastern Uganda.

“Most of these children don’t know who their parents are or even relatives and even those who know them don’t want to go back because of mistreatment,” an official at the ministry said.