Swazi children as young as eight years old are forced to scavenge for food in order to keep themselves and their families from starvation.
One eight-year-old girl who wakes up every morning at six to scavenge for old scrap metals and empty bottles to sell at recycling companies is one of many examples that have seen the city streets in Swaziland filled with children who should properly be at school.
Anyone who knows anything about Swaziland knows that seven out of ten people live in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar (about E7) a day. About 65 percent of the population relied on international food aid last year.
These are statistics that should shame Swaziland’s ruling elites, but for most of us they remain just that: statistics.
The Times of Swaziland has put some human flesh on these bare-boned statistics. The newspaper tells the story of little Nomcebo (not her real name) who earned about E3 for a day’s work collecting scrap metal. She is one of hundreds of children (possibly even more than that) who are reduced to tramping the streets.
The Times met other children, aged between eight and fifteen, who did similar work. The children make money to give their parents who are struggling to get a day’s meal.
To read more, click here.
Last month (September 2008) Swaziland spent an estimated 10 million US dollars (E70 million) to celebrate the 40th birthday of King Mswati III and the 40th anniversary of Swaziland’s independence from Britain.
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