My name is Aa and I’m four years old, I live with my mom, brother and baby sister, she is only one month old. We are not from this country but we live here now, to make money to send home. We used to live with my dad but he made us leave when his new family came, now we live in a park. I like the park during the day we can play and sleep; but at night it is scary. My mom can’t work, so I have to walk around alone asking for money. It is nice because some people give me toys. Before we left my house I fell off a bike and hurt my foot, it has been a long time and it isn’t better. It is really yucky now with green stuff coming out. It was small before but now it is almost as big as my foot. It is hard to walk; and I feel sick inside too, like I get really cold all of a sudden and then my mom gives me medicine, and I get better.
Today a lady came and helped my mom take me to the doctor. My mom was scared to go alone because she thought the police would take us back to the jail. That is where my baby sister was born, my mom hated it there. At the doctor’s office all the people were so mean, they talk to my mom so bad that she wanted to cry. While mom was talking to the nurses her face looked the same as when my Dad brought his new wife and we had to leave. They made us wait for so long. New people kept coming and talking. My mom kept saying, “please help her”. I don’t think they wanted to. They kept asking my mom for papers and things I don’t understand.
Finally they said ok, but told the lady she can’t bring people like us here. The Doctor was mean too. The nurses and doctors kept talking about me as if I couldn’t hear them. I was so scared I couldn’t talk; I saw a knife and I thought they were going to cut my foot off. Then the doctor just started cutting out the green stuff; it hurt so bad I just screamed in my own language, the one my mom speaks with her sister. I couldn’t help it, it hurt so badly, but the doctor kept laughing at me while he cut and telling me to stop speaking my language, that I should speak his language.
I was so tired when they were done; the lady brought us back to the park. I don’t ever want to go to a doctor again. The lady said she needs to come back and help my mom change the bandage, mom said yes ok, but I know we won’t be here. Tomorrow we will go to be another place, where nobody knows us and nobody can hurt us.
*This is a true story. The next day I went with a friend who is a nurse to change the dressing. They were gone and I have not seen them again. It was probably fear of me, the system, the doctors, the police; as well as humiliation that drove them away. I hope the daughter’s foot heals; the cut was very deep and needs proper care daily.
THE FACTS
- Every day in every country children like this suffer because of legal status; the children are innocent, have no choice and suffer the most.
- Here it is common for a husband to bring home a second wife sometimes causing the first to have to leave with her children; with no place to go.
- Here it is also common for a child to be bought on the border for the purpose of crossing over, coming to our city and begging in the touristy section.
- Regardless of your position on the issue of migration; children are often the ones who pay the price in no schooling, no medical treatment, and no social safety net
- Children who beg on the street are vulnerable to child pornography, sale into prostitution, and rape.
- Fear of detainment, abuse, rape, and loss of children cause parents to fear authorities and not seek out treatment for the needs of their children.
- Being controlled by a trafficking network also causes parents or caregivers to not seek treatment.
- Often the parents who put their children out have themselves been put out as children, or have been traumatized in other ways.
- These children are on the streets from 10pm to 5am almost every night.
Pray
- Pray for us as we begin walking with these children, to protect and serve them.
- Pray for their parents or caretaker; that we will build deep transformational relationships.
- Pray that we will have favor in the government; so that we can help provide their basic needs
- Pray that children would stop being used as tools for economic gain
- Pray every night that God would be their covering keeping them safe from evil people.