Street-Selling Kids Plea with Gov’t

Street-selling kids are pleading to the Government of Liberia to assist their parents in sending them to school. These kids are seen selling on the streets of Monrovia and its environs daily from dawn to dust, while their colleagues are in schools.

A ten-year old boy, only identified as Jeremiah in the Paker paint community, in the commercial district of Red-light, who sells what many refer to as “sweet-ba”, said he does such every morning on hishead for the survival of his family.

A box full of “sweet-ba” costs about LD$1,000.00, while the retail sells at LD$10.00 one.“My Mother can fry the “sweet-ba” in the morning and give it to me to carry it around and sell so that we can be able to cook that day for me and my brothers and sister to eat. My mother is a young baby ma so she sits home, while I go sell. Some of my brothers and sister are smaller than me; I have one big brother who does not help our mother; he lives in the house, but everyday he’s in the ghetto,” Jeremiah said.

“I can be sleepy sometimes when I get on the road to sell, especially when there is no buying, I can get on the side walk and sleep small because I can get up soon in the morning to help my mother,” he said, indicating that their father wakes up in the morning and does nothing to help his home.

A market women – Ma Martha, who sells bitter ball and other provisions on her market table in Red light market, said feels for street-selling children because as one who sells every day, it is not an easy task, but she has to do it to educate her children who have no father.

“My daughter, the Government needs to help the parents of all these children that are selling in streets because it will not help the society tomorrow; these are ways the country will build up more criminals because these children who are selling in the streets and are not going to school will not help the country tomorrow,” she said, adding that it was even risky for kids to sell in the streets among cars. “The children are suffering because their parents do not have; the government needs to intervene seriously,” she appealed. 

By Ethel A. Tweh