Cape Town homeless relocated during World Cup
The relocation camp known as Blikkiesdorp will house relocated homeless people from Cape Town city centre during the World Cup. Photo (c) Wiki-user Frombelow used under a Creative Commons 3.0 License
11.03.2010
By Miko SchneiderTheir eyes are deep brown, wide and imploring. Their clothes are ragged and dirty. Their bodies are thin and bony and their feet are bare. On Long Street, the busiest strip in Cape Town, while locals catch a bite to eat during their lunch break or tourists cruise the clubs on a night out, they follow like strays, begging for “50 cents” or “money for food ma’am”.
To see street children with absolutely nothing left to lose, not even their dignity, is absolutely heart breaking; yet it is a reality that many South Africans have come to live with every day. They also have to live with the fear of street crime, including pick pocketing, mugging, smash-and-grabs at traffic lights, and other crimes of desperation that are committed by these people on a regular basis.
These lost children are a result of a number of social factors: parental neglect; losing family to HIV/AIDS; drug addiction; gang membership; abject poverty; and more often a combination of these factors. It will take much investment by the government into housing, healthcare, education and skills generation for street-people and the homeless to see the quality of life they deserve.
Voluntary relocation programme or World Cup ‘clean-up operation’?
The City of Cape Town’s latest housing initiative is to relocate street children and homeless people from the city centre to the Symphony Way Temporary Relocation Area, better known as Blikkiesdorp (‘block town’), 30km from the central business district.
Critics are calling the plan a ‘clean-up operation’ for the World Cup, while the municipal government defends it as a voluntary and humane relocation programme that happens to coincide with the tournament.
The "2010 Street People Readiness Plan" is set to run from May-July 2010, but the details will only be made public in the coming weeks. City officials claim street children and homeless people will be ‘treated with respect and dignity’ during the relocation. Speaking to the Cape Times, city councilor J.P. Smith explained that the City of Cape Town had set aside housing in the temporary relocation area for 160 people, and that all those who will be moved there have volunteered to do so after ‘three years of counseling’.
Blikkiesdorp, one of 223 informal settlements in the wider Cape Town area, consists of 1,300 3m x 6m corrugated zinc block-shaped structures, fenced in by barbed wire. According to the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign’s website, ‘Police and Apartheid era riot vehicles are stationed (permanently) at the only entrance…’
In an article for the Mail & Guardian, city spokesperson Kylie Hatton claims that Blikkiesdorp is an ‘emergency area in terms of a national housing programme for people in emergency living conditions’. She also claims that is favourably comparable to other settlements in terms of access to services and nearby clinics, as well as ‘shelter, environment and density’.
However, previous residents have described it as a ‘dumping ground’ and complained that it is unsafe, dirty and drug-ridden. Incidents of xenophobic tension have plagued the settlement in the past, and healthcare volunteers and food resources are reported to be lacking.
Many South Africans, homeless and homeowners alike, are waiting to see whether the "2010 Street People Readiness Plan" will offer street people more than a temporary solution to their problems - at least one that will last longer than the duration of the 2010 World Cup.
As a social worker, I often came am in contact with street children. From conversations with them I know that they are special for the world cup be removed from the streets. The police picked them up in a violent way at night with the help of dogs. They are dropped far from the center so they will need at least one month to return to the city ...
The rights of children is much discussed here and it is very difficult to do something about it.
The article above is heart rendering but shows little insight to the hard reality of the problem. In matter of fact it contributes to children staying on the streets by targeting these people who give., Since I am living here I know organisations within the city who specify with street kids. They have become more professional over the years and getting more funding also from the city. The policy was ,is a 3step program, the kids voluntary getting used to a regular life off the streets.A lot has changed to the better within the years.The fact is that most of the children are being used by organised gangsters.I am particulary angry at woman, using toddlers (rented!!) to beg,they grow up on the motorised intersections and being send to the cars. Goverment is giving (a disputed)child grant and advocates pre school educaton and also poor can access it. The problem is rather poverty of the mind of many grown ups. Sa has come a long way and CS is active and watching also the CT.I hope they are implementing the law where kids are used=abused for begging immediatly!! For the past years the social workers could do very little to stop this to protect the children. file:///Users/admin/Desktop/ Cape may remove 'rent-a-kids' used to beg.webarchive
Watch the video here and pass it around please!!
http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=iFozuSZV jJY
Surely this can’t be deemed right in the eyes of the world? Those tin shacks might be ok for now in the winter sun but they will be like ovens in the summer heat later on in the year! That is proof in it’s own that this is a blatant temporary measure just for the World Cup – just because it sounds right in their head…. doesn’t mean it sounds right to the world.
Welcome to the real South Africa people…. where the government only thinks for themselves and not the people!