By Stephanie Mooney

Any form of abuse leaves scars. A few years ago I participated in some focus group meetings with street living children, aged from 6 years to 16 years, to explore starting a radio project for Feba UK for these children in Kinshasa, DR Congo. It was particularly difficult to get street living girls to participate but we where able to include a small group of teenage girls. I was deeply affected by a 16 year-old girl who showed me several scars on her body that she had suffered from being beaten and being raped. These were her outward scars but she also had deep psychological scars from her suffering that couldn’t be as easily seen.

Shockingly, this girl’s experiences are not uncommon; as there are approximately 25,000 children living on the streets of Kinshasa and the number is growing. Many of the children are on the streets because they have been accused of being witches and as a result, been thrown out of their homes and excluded from their communities. Any child living on the street is marginalised, but girls are particularly vulnerable and to survive, many are coerced into sex work.

As the Feba UK radio project developed, the group of street living children helped develop a script for a radio drama series to address child witch accusations and the girls in the group were particularly keen on their experiences being reflected. The part of the drama that they wanted to include was the traumatic ‘baptism’ of young girls on the streets, which is when a girl newly on the streets is ‘initiated’ by being raped. The girls were very vocal about ensuring that this was reflected correctly in the drama as their experiences and their suffering had previously been ignored.

By being based on the real life experiences of young street living children, the radio drama series and the wider radio project were able to give these children an opportunity to talk about their lives on the streets. Skills development was provided for these street living children to become youth journalists. This innovative project helped the children find ways to improve their lives and helped change the perception and behaviour of the wider community towards them.

Improving the lives of street living children is a massive challenge and will not happen overnight; however, these youth journalists are persevering and using the media space to share stories, to promote healing and to protect the rights of street living children.

If this article raises any personal issues please contact your local professional services or contact the helplines below.

In Australia: 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

In UK: National Domestic Violence Helpline 0808 2000 247

Any child living on the street is marginalised, but girls are particularly vulnerable and to survive, many are coerced into sex work.