AfricaPress-Tanzania: A RECENT survey conducted by Railway Children Africa (RCA) has concluded that poor living conditions in some Dodoma region villages is one of the major reasons forcing many to leave their families and chose to beg in urban area.
RCA, a subsidiary of Railway Children UK— an international charity that fights for Children Living and Working in the Streets (CLWS) conducted the study in collaboration with other partners in some Tanzania’s six regions of Dodoma, Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Mbeya and Mwanza.
In the findings, they noted that the population of children living and working in the streets is rather small in comparison to the other cities that were also surveyed.
The survey according to RCA Advocacy Manager, Rose Kaguo, realized that in Dodoma, most CLWS were males, and females only accounting to 12per cent.
It indicated that most of the male CLWS were aged 11–18 , and females 11–14 further pointing out that at night, while the number of male CLWS went down by two thirds, the number of females remained the same, accounting for 26per cent of the total count.
The surveyors, however, did not find any small children aged 0–6 at night. While males were distributed across the streets, 93per cent of females aged 15–18 were found to be commercial sex workers at night.
The findings further suggested that during the day, two thirds of male CLWS engaged in some form of businesses in fixed or mobile way, while a third engaged in begging.
Over half of the female CLWS were idling in the streets, while only 18per cent were engaged in some form of business activities.
