The long and snaking queues of transit trucks welcome you to Busia, the border of Kenya and Uganda.
At the border checkpoint, human traffic is massive, as people cross from one end to the other. Men and women exchange pleasantries as they engage in different businesses. It is a buzz of activities here.
Beneath this buzz is an endangered boychild who has found solace in menial jobs along the border.
The visibly underage boys are used to ferry goods across the border, as well as loading and other income generating activities.
Walking through Busia’s crowded avenues, one cannot help but notice the young faces marked by hardship, vulnerability, and a sense of neglect, abandonment and doomed.
Many of these boys, some as young as seven, live in squalor, spending cold nights on pieces of cartons. On days when they do not find menial jobs or get help from well-wishers, they sleep hungry.
‘We have so many boys on the street compared to girls because of the harshness of street life. Girls cannot handle it, but boys are risk takers and when they undergo physical, sexual and emotional abuse they become resilient unlike girls’-Patrick Mkolwe, Children officer, Busia
Their stories paint a picture of the challenges the boychild faces, and family and societal issues that continue to push them into street life.
Streets for homes
Mark (not his real name) is a 13-year-old from Uganda. He recounts how he ended up in Busia town after his mother left him and his siblings with the grandmother and disappeared, never to be seen.
“I lived with my grandmother who could not provide for me and my siblings after my mother disappeared. I do not know my father’s whereabouts. I have never seen him,” he said.
He left home for Busia and has been surviving on odd jobs and occasional help from well-wishers. Once in a while, he goes home to see his grandmother and his sister with the little money he collects on the street.
Dan (not real name), 11, is also from Uganda, and says that he found himself in the streets after running away from an abusive parents.
“After my mother died, my father remarried and my stepmother wanted me to do odd jobs the whole day. She would offer me only one meal a day with a lot of beating which made me run away from home to find safety,” said Ologee.
Sam (not real name), 10, who is from Kenya, said his mother abandoned him in Busia town and relocated to Uganda.
“My mother left for Uganda to find my father with my sibling and I was left behind. I tried to contact her but she said she will come for me but up to now I have not seen her and I gave up and came on the street since I had no one,” he reveals.
For many boys, the street represents freedom, but it also exposes them to harsh realities: hunger, violence, and exploitation. Some families send the boys to the streets to hawk while others use them to traffic drugs and contraband.
Invasion by Uganda street kids
An officer in the Department of Children Protection Unit in Busia, Patrick Mkolwe, said that they have tried so many times to clear the boys from the street but it is all in vain.
“We have done three mop ups since last year. Eighty per cent of the children are from Uganda,” said Mkolwe.
He further explained that in the last mop up, they rescued 56 street families and 36 of them were children. Out of the 36 boys, 12 were from Kenya.
He added that Busia town has more than 100 street children compared to other towns in Busia County, quoting a survey that was done between 2018 and 2019. Only three out of that number were girls and they were from Uganda.
“We have so many boys on the street compared to girls because of the harshness of street life. Girls cannot handle it, but boys are risk takers and when they undergo physical, sexual and emotional abuse they become resilient unlike girls,” said Mkolwe.
According to Mr Mkolwe, some of the factors that push boys to the street are poverty, broken families, exploitation and societal expectations. There is a belief that boys are hardened and should be the protectors and providers for the families.
Mkolwe also believes that Kenyans are empathetic to street children hence the influx of boys from Uganda. In addition, there are those who just come to work in order to fend for their families.
He says any time they do mop up, the street kids are usually taken back to their homes but they always come back this is because of their family condition and since they have developed resilient of the street, maintaining them in their homes becomes difficult.
But not all the boys are out on the streets due to neglect or poverty.
“You find that they are used to the street life, they are used to managing themselves, they are used to being delinquent and because of the influence of drugs and trafficking drugs like bhang, marijuana, Kuber and other cross border issues they are engaged in has made it difficult to retain or integrate them in their families fully,” said Mkolwe.
No clear policy on dealing with street children
Before devolution, street family rehabilitation was the mandate of the local government. After devolution, there is no clear-cut guideline on who between the county and national government has the mandate.
Mkolwe said Busia need to have a rehabilitation Centre where the boys can be taken and rehabilitated before being taken to their families since they cannot be taken to children’s home.
“We cannot take them back to their family direct with a lot of abuses they have undergone in the streets and we cannot take them to the children home or rescue centre because they are likely to pull other children to the street so we need a special rehabilitation centre for them to work on their behaviour change, “he said.
According to the Children’s Act 2022, there are penalties set out for cruelty and neglect of children. When children in need of care and protection are found guilty of an offense, they will be committed to a rehabilitation school and this can only work if there is a clear rehabilitation structure since some of them are child offenders
Mkolwe further said that his department and the county government have a draft children policy that they are working on and it clearly states the issue of street families that they need a clear rehabilitation mechanism and funds allocate for them, though they face challenges because most of the street children are from Uganda and there policy is not the same with the one in Kenya and it became hard to deal with other country affair.
“You find that when we do mop up on the street and take the children back to their country it’s like they stay somewhere for a short time then they come back,” said mkolwe.
Family support
Disco matanga too has contributed to the vulnerability of boys. These all-night funeral dances, common in the region, are blamed for luring boys into risky behaviours.
“Boys attend these discos, and it’s here that they often get introduced to drugs or fall victim to criminal networks,” says Celestine Wesonga, a community leader in Busia.
However, as Celestine and other community leaders note, disco matanga is just a symptom of a larger problem. The real issues lie in the lack of opportunities and the breakdown of family structures that leave boys with few alternatives.
“It’s not just the discos, these boys don’t have strong family support, proper education or guidance. That’s why they end up on the streets,” Celestine explains.
Once they are on the street, they are exposed to border trade and crime, given Busia’s strategic location as a border town, many street boys are drawn into the informal cross-border trade. Some act as “porters,” helping smuggle goods such as sugar, fuel, or even illicit drugs between Kenya and Uganda, this often places them at odds with the law.
Security threats
Busia County Commander Ahmed Abdille said the street boys are a threat to the security in town and they are used in drug trafficking such us cannabis, ethanol, changaa and many others.
“The boys are hired by thieves to commit crime and some of them due to regular practice they have become thieves, they hang on trailer as there means of transport causing damages by cutting seals and stealing oil which is a dangerous activity,” said Ahmed.
Unfortunately, the lack of proper schooling and mentorship leaves these boys more susceptible to being recruited into crime syndicates that exploited the same time their desperation. Border towns like Busia are rife with crime, and the boys often find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of criminal activity and violence.
Parents and community leaders express both frustration and helplessness regarding the plight of these boys.
“We are losing an entire generation of boys,” laments Martha Nabwire, a mother whose son is on the streets.
She, like many other parents, blames the economic hardships, breakdown in societal values, and government inaction for the increasing numbers of street boys.
Valentine Oyamo, a parent in Busia admits that the society has increasingly forgotten the boy child, especially those living on the streets. These boys, often left to fend for themselves, are expected to be tough, resilient, and to figure life out on their own, yet they are still children vulnerable and in need of guidance, protection, and love.
Many efforts focus on supporting the girl child, and while this is crucial, we must not neglect our boys. Street boys, in particular, are often dismissed as troublemakers, but many of them are victims of circumstances beyond their control. They face harsh realities daily abandonment, hunger, violence and grow up too fast in an environment that lacks structure, care, and education.
Local government officials and NGOs are aware of the problem but are struggling to find lasting solutions. “We have tried to rehabilitate some of these boys, but the resources are limited,” admits Cornel Ojwang’, a field officer for Shelter of United Love, an NGO helping street children.
He points to the street children rehabilitation programmes that were more prominent during the tenure of President Mwai Kibaki, under which significant strides were made in removing children from the streets and placing them in care institutions.
‘We are yearning that the rehabilitation trust fund be revived and funded well so that Busia can benefit and as a county we are working on children policy that will cater for all children needs and will help develop child protection centres and parents trained on the parenting issues so as to deal with the issue once and for all’- Mkolwe.
During the Kibaki administration, the government launched the street families Rehabilitation Trust Fund, which aimed to provide education, skills training, and shelter for street children (Article 53 of children policy).
This programme saw notable success in reducing the number of street children in towns, however, in recent years, efforts to sustain and expand these programmes has failed.
“We are yearning that the rehabilitation trust fund be revived and funded well so that Busia can benefit and as a county we are working on children policy that will cater for all children needs and will help develop child protection centres and parents trained on the parenting issues so as to deal with the issue once and for all,” said Mkolwe.
Shelter of United Love is one of the local organizations working closely with the children department to rehabilitate street children, but their resources are stretched thin.
“We’re trying our best to provide counseling, reintegrate the children back to their homes and educate parents and society on how to accommodate them, but we need more support from the county government since there are funds allocated specifically for these issues but we have never seen,” said Duncan Oduor, Shelter of United Love field officer.
He emphasised that while their efforts to help rehabilitate some boys, the sheer scale of the problem requires a coordinated response involving both the community and government.
Experts and community leaders are calling for holistic approaches, including strengthening family support systems, improving education access, and cracking down on practices such as using boys to do border trade and also disco matangas.
As the sun sets over Busia, the sight of boys wandering the streets serves as a reminder that the boychild, needs more attention and care. Without meaningful intervention, this town, and others like it, risk raising a generation of boys without direction, guidance, or hope for the future.
