These are thoughts from Lydia Caldwell as found on her blog.
On Sunday February 3, I attended the kick-off to Human Rights Week with the showing of Gilbert Mulamba’s documentary “The Street Children of Kinshasa.” The event opened with an introduction from UD Professor Marilyn Fischer. She spoke a little bit about our rights as human beings and how they relate to what she referred to as “human rights characteristics:” health care, employment and education. She called those in attendance to keep in mind these rights as we examine the lives and injustice of the young Congolese children forced to live on the streets of Kinshasa.
Immediately following this short introduction Mulamba’s documentary was shown. It was truly an emotional and powerful piece of work. Mulamba is a Congolese native who came to the United States about seventeen years ago on an education visa. He currently remains in the United States working in the field of bioinformatics for a company that does research on AIDS and cloning. The footage shown in his documentary was captured by Mulamba himself during a trip back to the Congo. Having been away from the country for a short period of time he saw the extreme injustice in a new light and wanted to expose the plight of these young African children.
The documentary was divided into two parts. The first part of the film gave a short history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and focused largely on the country’s abundant natural resources and troublesome economics. The film attributed a lot of the country’s problems to King Leopold II of Belgium who acquired the Congo territory in 1885, and made it his own personal property, referring to it as the Congo Free State. Leopold treated the native African population horribly. The only thing he was concerned about was making money off the vast natural resources, particularly rubber. When the natives did not reach the daily rubber quota set by Leopold, he had their hands cut off; many people died from this exploitation especially when disease set in. The area was taken over by the Belgian government around 1910 and independence was received in 1960. The country has been plagued by extreme political corruption and years of civil war. There is very little if any government control, and the native population is stricken by tremendous poverty. There was great effort to show the natural environment of the Congo and its rich supply of natural minerals, yet the country is still so deeply stricken with poverty; it doesn’t seem as if the two should go hand in hand; somewhere there is an abuse of power.
The second part of the video, and the main focus of the presentation, was on the street children of Kinshasa, a result of the extreme poverty in the country. Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The streets of the city are filled with tens of thousands of homeless children from age 3-18 fighting to survive on their own. The video cited three main reasons for all of these abandoned children. The first reason given was that the children were orphaned, both parents having been killed in the civil wars or by disease, such as the increasing AIDS epidemic. Some of these children have lost entire families and have nowhere else to turn. The second reason a lot of these children have been abandoned by their families is because they have been accused of sorcery. These children are often abused and neglected before being thrown out of their homes. The last reason cited in the film for the increasing number of children on the streets of Kinshasa is extreme poverty. Some children remark that their families were so poor they were not able to provide enough food. Their dire home conditions have left them to seek a better life on their own.
The children have a negative reputation and are viewed as the thieves and scoundrels of society, engaged in begging, crime and prostitution; they are referred to by civilians as “shegues” and are victims of their environment. The children are subject to routine physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by law enforcement personnel and ordinary civilians. Their extreme vulnerability is taken advantage of and they are often forced into child labor or radical military work.
After the documentary, Gilbert Mulamba answered questions. He seemed very upset for his country and did not vocalize much hope for the cause. When asked about what non-profit groups and organizations were helping out with the situation, he said that there was not a lot of relief going into the area and that a lot of large non-profit organizations were not sending aid to the Congo. The movie did show one Jesuit institution outside the city of Kinshasa, that has formed a relief center particularly for the education and well-being of these children. It is a life-saving institution for those that can take up residence there and get off the streets, but the center can only help so many children.
What is happening to these children is an extreme injustice; they are not supplied with the means to fulfill their basic human rights. These are the people preached about in the gospel. These children are the face of God and we are being called to help the least of God’s people. We must not wait until Judgment Day to find out that by sitting back and ignoring the plight of our brothers and sisters, we were denying God food, shelter, and aid. Something needs to be done. Gilbert Mulamba should have a reason to hope for his country.
