In Cairo, hordes of street kids, but no longer ignored
The Egyptian government and nonprofit groups are stepping up efforts to help street children.
from the January 31, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
Most children end up on the streets because of violence at home, say social workers. Once on the street, the boys and, increasingly, girls, fall in with a gang led by a teenager and sell odds and ends, and beg or steal to bring back the day's quota of earnings. The hardships of their lives leave not only psychological, but physical scars.
It's also haircut day at Ma'weh and the boys line up, each with specific styling instructions for the barber. Sayid admits quietly that the goal is to prevent lice. Kareem opts for a buzz cut. Mustapha hides. One boy is fighting to keep the fringe of hair he grew long at the nape of his neck. But the barber's clippers have revealed more than the boy's vanity.
"This is from fighting. They all have this under their hair," Sayid says discreetly noting the white scars on the boy's head.
But despite the dangers, many kids are reluctant to leave the streets, says Zaki of UNICEF. They fear abuse at home and find the street, with all its dangers, safer.
"Those that stay for a long time, they have their own life. They have their friends and relationships," says Zaki. "They want to have a job and an independent life. They don't want to go back to the misery."
It's Sayid's job to try to break through that thinking. He quickly learned ways to penetrate the gangs of street children in Cairo, making, he says, the necessary deals with the devil – the gang leaders. He told them "leave those kids for me in the morning to give them food and clothes, and I will leave them for you at night so they can work for you. Services for services."
As Kareem and Mustapha leave the shelter, the boys' bare feet pound down the dirt road choked with taxis, mini-buses, and hordes of children neatly dressed in school uniforms heading home.
Kareem and Mustapha will return to the train station where their parents sell coffee and tea the same way they always do, Kareem says, by hopping onto the back of a passing truck and clinging to its sides.
When a visitor offers them a lift in a passing golf cart-like vehicle called a tuk tuk, Kareem hops in. But wary Mustapha eyes the tuk tuk suspiciously then turns and disappears into the crowd.
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