African street children rise as recession bites

LUANDA (Reuters) - The global financial crisis is choking aid to Africa and government spending on social programmes, forcing millions of children onto the streets of the world's poorest continent, the Christian Children's Fund said on Friday.

Usually associated with the slums of Latin America and the Indian subcontinent, street children are a growing phenomenon in Africa. The United Nations estimates that about one fifth of the world's 150 million street children live in Africa.

Isam Ghanim, vice-president for Africa of the U.S.-based $300-million-a-year (210-million-pounds-a-year) charity fund that helps children from around the world, urged the international community and African nations to continue spending on programmes that keep children off the streets.

"More and more people are migrating from rural areas to urban areas. You also have families that because of their economic situation and lack of housing send their children to work in the streets," he said in an interview with Reuters.

"We call on African governments to continue to enact policies that protect children. We also call for institutional donors, especially from the West, to provide substantial amounts of appropriations for child-oriented programmes," he said.

A persisting food crisis and rising HIV/AIDS infection rates are also fuelling an increase in the number of children who take to the streets of cities from Johannesburg to Rabat to beg, he said.

U.N. agencies say that although international food prices have fallen sharply from highs reached last year, they are still well above the levels of two years ago and have driven millions more people into poverty who now require help.

"The HIV/AIDS epidemic has resulted in millions of orphans in Africa who inevitably end up on the streets," Ghanim said.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected by HIV, accounting for more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV globally.

Some African leaders have brushed aside fears that the global economic crisis will have a major impact on a continent that has been growing at its fastest pace in decades. But when it comes to children, Ghanim said the suffering will be huge.

"Many observers believe the impact of the crisis on African children is minimum. I disagree," he said, noting that as African exports plunge, governments are cutting spending on social programmes aimed at improving the lives of children.

He also said that falling remittances from Europe and the United States to Africa, caused by millions of job cuts in the developed world, was also weighing on the economic well-being of African parents and their children.

"The net result of all of this means that children in African countries are getting less food," he said.