Street Children
By Andy Butcher
Nelson Word. 180 pages. £5.99
ISBN 1 86024 028 3
All royalties go to street children.
The suffering of street children the world over is one of the great challenges for the church today. Andy Butcher sets out the issues and calls for action in his new book Street Children, reviewed here by Alisdair Barron.
Whatever the millennium represents, it will include looking back on at least two centuries of unparalleled prosperity in the Western world. That will certainly be part of our millennial triumph. But, at the same time, its shame could well be that there will be more children on the streets of the world than ever before. It would be marvellous if in the next four years substantial progress could be made in tackling the problem.
The issue of street children is perhaps the epitome of those issues that the church would rather not look squarely in the face. Many people are under the impression that street children are a minor phenomenon, limited to the major cities of the world where certain forces have combined to bring a special grinding poverty to the inhabitants.
Why on the streets?
Street Children shows that the problem is much bigger than most people think. It looks at the issues around street children, such as economics and social policy, and the role of government and the Christian community, and also gives a good description of the lives of street children through examples, and the work of a dedicated few who are making a difference through their face-to-face ministries.
At the heart of the book is a good section with some 50 Bible references setting out the biblical background, especially Jesus's teaching on children. Overall, the book is a valuable primer, covering why children are on the streets, their suffering and destruction and what can be done about it. Basically it's very readable and quite short at 180 pages, but the grim nature of the contents takes some stomaching at times. Steve Chalke, who heads Oasis, leads off with a somewhat acerbic foreword, which focuses on Jesus's birth in straitened circumstances, challenging our comfortable images of Bethlehem stables. For 'Jesus was born in a stable' read 'possibly born in a street'.
Child suffering
The sweep of child suffering throughout history is unfolded. Street children seem to have been an uncomfortable reality in every age.
Some of the pioneers in alleviating suffering, like George Muller, Thomas Barnado and William Booth, are briefly described. Reading about what Muller did, in particular, one is challenged to know how he could achieve so much for God. Well, because God was with him. Of course, but where does that leave us? The gap between what he did and where I am seems more like a chasm.
The technique of referring frequently to Dickins's Oliver Twist is an interesting device. Starting from Oliver's 'Please, sir, I want some more', argu-ably six of the most famous words in childhood, each chapter is headed by a potent quotation from Oliver Twist.
But I felt that very few people, say, under the age of 40, will actually have read Oliver Twist. So reflecting off dull old Dickens, who produced long books that were hard to read, would set up the idea that street children were part of Victorian history, and the whole idea of street children today could safely be forgotten.
Butcher rightly points out the tenacious nature of evil, portrayed by the wicked Fagin and his cronies. What Dickens crafted so excellently in his story of Oliver, was the contrast between the two camps of good and evil. At bottom, street children today are the result of neglect for whatever reason, trapped in a twilight world of evil which often leads them through a tortuous route of abuse and violence to their early deaths. Not a pretty scenario.
There are perhaps 100 million of them. They sleep in the graveyards of Khartoum, on top of bus shelters in Sao Paulo, in the sewers of Bogota, in cardboard boxes in London, and under abandoned cars in New York. They clean shoes in Manila, steal purses in Milan, guard parked cars in Nairobi, and sell their bodies in Sydney. Anything to make enough for something to eat.
Feeling angry
Anyone who cares about children will probably feel very angry at the violation of life played out in so many hapless kids all over the world. The lack of justice for such a vulnerable group is stark. And their plight raises all sorts of questions about the responsibility of parents and government and society in general. The book desribes various recent international commissions, with their attempts to create a more favourable national and international environment where children's rights are taken seriously, put in place and enforced. Their work needs to be supported and encouraged.
Further, the description of some of the many projects currently making a difference is inspiring. People from widely-differing backgrounds have been called by God into demanding and often dangerous situations.
I felt, though, that the pressures those workers face, and their needs, could have been expanded on. How do they cope with the huge demands of such street children who soak up love like a sponge? And losing kids back to the street? That's the life they know, and getting free of street habits (including drugs) is hard work. The tragedies which those field workers see almost daily must take their toll. How do they keep their marriages, families and relationships together?
Our government
After reading the book, it's clear that much more needs to be done. Our own UK government, for example, would do well to stop procrastinating and put a law on the statute book allowing the prosecution in Britain of British residents guilty of the sexual abuse of children while abroad. An address list of organisations involved in children's work is provided at the end of the book for those who wish to make contact.
There's no particular readership in mind, rather there is a concern that every reader should look at the issues afresh and decide what (if anything) they should do in response.
Overall, the book succeeds as a measured work on a difficult and emotive subject that's hard to tackle objectively. Butcher should be congratulated for retaining objectivity throughout, a fact that will help the book achieve the greatest impact, because it cannot be dismissed lightly. But perhaps, more than anything, it is a challenge to action, a challenge to the dozing church to wake up.
No one should feel pressurised, though, that is not the intention. However, we can all pray and consider supporting work to alleviate child suffering.
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