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CHILDREN OF THE STREETS:  

A STUDY OF SOME SELECTED AFRICAN NOVELS 

 

 

Ijeoma Eucharia Ugwuanyi 

English Department, FCE (T), Umunze, Anambra State 

Email:ijeomaugwuanyi2013@gmail.com 

 

 

Abstract 

This paper investigated street children as presented by Amma Darko in 

Faceless and Bulawayo Noviolate in We Need New Names. The paper 

examined the nature of the environment where these children operate. It also 

highlighted various ways the rights of the street children have been abused, 

and the consequences of different bizarre experiences on their psyche. 

Complete experiences of the children were obtained through qualitative 

research method. Post-colonial theory guided the study to determine the state 

of African children after the colonial rule since street children were not part of 

the past. Psycho-analytical theory was also adopted to determine the state of 

the mind of street children as trauma caused by living on the streets could be 

very difficult to manage. At the end of the study, it was discovered that 

children living on the streets are not adequately protected from abuse because 

they lack basic needs of life like, shelter, food and clothing. To minimize the 

development of street children, natural strategy aimed at promoting, 

protecting and fulfilling their rights should be promulgated.                                          

 

Keywords: Children of the Street, African Literature, Psychoanalytical 

Theory  

 

Introduction 

Around the world, too many children are subjected to abuse. Some are forced 

to work under harmful conditions, while others are forced to flee their homes 

due to conflict or natural disaster. Millions, especially girls are subjected to 

sexual violence. This paper discusses the independent nature and the abuse of 

the children of the streets in Amma Darko’s Faceless and Noviolet 

Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. The paper examines the children’s love for 

family members denied to them which constitutes a major form of 

deprivation. From investigating the stylistic features employed by the authors 

such as technique of contrast, some of the contributing factors to this form of 

deprivation like poverty, absentee parents, and misplaced priorities on the part 

of government shall be discussed to determine how these situations form the 

character of the street children. 

 

mailto:ijeomaugwuanyi2013@gmail.com


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In 2000, World Health Organization grouped children of the street into four 

categories: a child “of the street”, having no home but the streets. The family 

may have abandoned him or her and so he or she is left alone. Such a child 

may struggle for survival and might move from friend to friend, or live in an 

abandoned building. A street child may be a child “on the streets”, visiting his 

or her family regularly. He or she might even return every night to sleep at 

home, but spends most days and some nights on the streets because of 

poverty, overcrowding, sexual or physical abuse at home. A street child may 

be “a part of a street family”. Some live on the city squares with the rest of 

their families displaced due to poverty, natural disasters, or war which forced 

them to live on the streets. A street child can also be “in an institutionalized 

care”, having come from a situation of homelessness and at risk of returning 

to a homeless existence. They are vulnerable people, and they are abused 

mentally, sexually, psychologically, and morally on daily basis. Many 

children in Africa are being abandoned by their parents and guardians due to 

the hard economic situation. 

 

Psychoanalytic and post-colonial theories have been adopted to examine the 

rules and principles that shape how the novels are written which help to 

analyze the processes that contribute to children’s neglect. For Mary Kleges 

helps us to understand literary theory when she quotes Aristotle that: 

In the world we perceive through our senses, things exist 

according to ordered principles which can discover Aristotle’s 

‘truth’, what his philosophy seeks to understand and teach, 

resides in discovering the rules and principles that govern how 

things work and take on meaning in our material world. (15)    

 

Faceless and We Need New Nameshave recorded stories that are filled with 

traumatic experiences of which psychoanalysis can serve as a rule guiding 

their reading. They also recorded events that take place after the official rule 

of the colonial masters and which post-colonial theory can serve as a rule 

guiding our understanding of the texts. Our major focus on psychoanalysis 

shall be on street children’s traumatic experiences and their dreams which 

could not materialize. 

 

With reference to Sigmund Freud, Ann Dobie explains dreams: “Our dreams 

are languages of the unconscious full of unfilled desires, that the conscious 

mind is buried there” (55). Continuing, she said. “As a window into the 

unconscious, dreams become valuable tools for psychoanalysts in determining 

unresolved conflicts in the psyche…” (56) Sussan Nolen-Hoekeing in her 

book Abnormal Psychology summarized psychoanalysis, where she said that 

“extreme cases of unpalatable experiences result to traumas and victims suffer 

the effects sometimes for a life time” (58). For Nolen-Hoekseing, further 

explains that physical abuse, sexual abuse as in rape, incest and child 



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prostitution can contribute to long-term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 

(PTSD). Fofo, Baby T, Darling, in Faceless, Chipo, Bastard, Godknows, Sbho 

and Stina in WeNeed New Names witness the abuses. 

 

The Technique of Contrast which offer Insight into the Exploitation of 

the Street Children 

The art, writes I.A. Richard, “is the beautiful ordering of what in most minds 

is disordered” and Alexander Pope once defined the subject of art as “What 

oft’ was thought, but ne’er so well expressed”. These definitions suggest that 

the artist’s distinction lies in how well he or she can artistically utilize 

available human experiences to offer vision to a society. Amma Darko and 

Noviolet Bulawayo are synoptic when the theme of their novels is concerned 

with children of the streets. Their novels probe the causes of reckless 

abandonment of street children in major African cities. In order to achieve 

this, they adopt the stylistic feature of contrast to compare the ideal family 

who cares for their children with the other family who abandons theirs to the 

streets. Also, they try to compare the ideal country that has good amenities set 

apart with other countries that desert her citizens. In Ghana, as recounted by 

J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada, et al “there is a surge in the number of street 

children… and these children appear doomed without appropriate 

intervention” (359). It is against this that Amma Darko wrote her novel, 

Faceless and Noviolate Bulawayo recorded post-colonial disillusionment of 

citizens of Zimbabwe. 

 

Contrast is the device used by Darko and Bulawaya to strike a difference 

between compared situations in Faceless and We Need New Names. Amma 

Darko employs the technique of contrast in Faceless with respect to the 

representation of two families in the story. The two families are those of Maa 

Tsuru and that of Kabria. Kabria’s family, as a unit, is presented as almost 

perfect. She is a mother of three and married to Adade. She is resourceful, 

diligent, and combines her role as a wife, a mother and a working class 

woman. Her family is intact and cohesive. The children in her family are well-

cared for, educated and happy. The family of Maa Tsuru is a direct opposite of 

Kabria’s. Her family is scattered, and broken with no hope of redemption. Her 

children lack basic needs, drop out of school, and find solace in the street life. 

For the family of Maa Tsuru, we find child abuse, child labour, neglect and 

abandonment of children, rape and sexual abuse, child prostitution and other 

forms of exploitation. All these violate child’s rights as enshrined in 2015 

Child Rights Act. Bulawayo in We Need New Names employs contrast to 

strike a difference in a policy of discrimination or a policy of separate 

development by the whites in Zimbabwe. By this policy, the whites live in 

Budapest and the blacks live in Paradise. Paradise here is ironic. It is supposed 

to be a place of elected bliss which is pleasant to live in but the reverse is the 

case here. The white people live in the heart of the city with all the amenities 



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of modern life. The Zimbabwean shanty town, called Paradise, is where life is 

a daily struggle for sustenance as the regime destroys homes and closes down 

schools. 

 

Darling, the protagonist and her friends, three boys and three girls roam the 

streets to look for the food they would eat. Bastard is a boy of eleven years, 

Chipo, a girl of eleven, Godknows, a boy of ten, Sbho, is a girl of nine, Stina, 

a boy who has no birth certificate and the protagonist, Darling is a ten-year 

old girl. These children wander from one town to the other, looking for 

something to steal, especially, guava in a fertile land of Budapest. They are 

not being fed by their parents as their parents abandon them to somewhere 

else. Their mothers are busy with hair and idle talks. Their fathers do not care. 

They go for dangerous jobs at nearby countries, especially South Africa and 

contracting diseases such as AIDS there. Street life becomes the order of the 

day for children in Paradise as they are abandoned by their parents 

unsupervised. They are left at the hands of their grand-parents. Chipo, is now 

raped by her grandfather who impregnated her. 

 

Darling and her friends roam the streets turning their quest for food into 

games and making observations of their country’s social ills. There are too 

many problems in Paradise, such as whoring spouses, poverty, joblessness, 

AIDS, madness and numerous other problems. Darling and her friends wander 

from Paradise black settlement in Zimbabwe to Budapest, a white 

neighborhood in Zimbabwe in search of guava. Life in Budapest is better. The 

white people in Budapest were controlling Paradise before her independence 

despite the overwhelming black population. The government was entirely in 

the hands of the white minority. They subjected the blacks to some of the 

worst forms of dehumanization, and there has been violent uprising and revolt 

from Paradise. 

 

The discriminatory attitude of the white population has been so fierce and 

rigid on the blacks. The blacks begin to revolt against the whites which leads 

to their having independence but not without bruises. It results in the removal 

of the white dominated government and Zimbabwe attains political 

independence. They begin to repossess and redistribute large tracks of land 

from the minority whites’ community. Robbert Mugabe, the new president of 

Zimbabwe allocates the fertile lands to himself and infertile lands to his 

people of Paradise that lead to many of them dying of hunger. People of 

Paradise now revolt against themselves: 

…No, those were evil people who came to steal our 

own land and make us paupers in our own country. 

What? Aren’t you a pauper now? Aren’t these black 

people evil for building your home and leaving you 

with nothing now? Better a white thief do that to you 



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than your own black brother. Better a wretched white 

thief (75). 

 

All these compound the troubles in Paradise and lead to hunger, diseases, 

poverty, and abandonment of children to wander from one place to the other 

in search of food to eat. They now stop going to school. They suffer 

deprivation, neglect, sexual abuse and they are exposed to the dangers of 

street life. Their love for family members is denied to them. 

 

The Nature of the Environment Children of the Streets Operate 

According to Britannica: Ghana, about 50,000 low income inhabitants have 

settled into “Sodom and Gomorrah” from across Ghana. Many of the villagers 

find themselves trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, where the old and the 

young toil side by side. Many of the untold stories happen in “Sodom and 

Gomorrah”. It is a home for armed robbers, prostitutes, drug dealers in their 

market called Agbogbloshie which is nicknamed ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, the 

two condemned biblical cities. 

 

Post-colonial disillusionment and feeling of disappointment are experienced in 

the country. It is not what the people expected from the African leaders that 

are happening. As a result of that, people desert their homes in the villages to 

the urban areas for means of livelihood. “Sodom and Gomorrah”, a section of 

Accra, Ghana is still being populated by criminals even after Ghana’s 

independence. There is still Agbogbloshie market, a biblical “Sodom and 

Gomorrah” neighborhood where atrocities are committed by adults against 

children. Fofo, the protagonist watches adult films, drinks local gin and she is 

nearly raped by Poison, a street lord. It is here that Baby T, Fofo’s sister is 

killed and Fofo herself steals there to survive. Most people in “Sodom and 

Gomorrah” are stricken with poverty. The poverty in the land compels Maa 

Tsuru to drive away her children into the street so that they can fend for 

themselves.  

 

Poverty, in line with negligence and irresponsibility of parents, ruin the lives 

of children. Men who find themselves incapable of sustaining a family run 

away from home, leaving the wives to take care of the children. When the 

burden becomes too much for the women, they relieve themselves by pushing 

the children into the streets to suffer. This is the case of Kwei, Maa Tsuru’s 

husband by whom she has four children, two sons and two daughters. Kpakpo 

deceives Maa Tsuru by sending Baby T. into prostitution. Unknown to the 

wife, he manipulates Baby T. into co-habitation with them under one roof. He 

sexually manipulates Baby T. In Kpakpo, we see an example of child abuse. 

The post-colonial disillusionment in We Need New Names begins with 

Paradise voting in their new president to have “a real change” in the country. 

Robert Mugabe has once explained on BBC news how their country has been 



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a black man’s home and never a colony. People are happy that they are voting 

in a new president. They are disappointed to have voted in a very old 

president that has nothing new to offer just like other African presidents, Stina 

observes: 

I saw a picture of a president in a magazine. He was also with 

the president of Zambia and Malawi and South Africa and 

Nigeria and other presidents. They were all old. You have to be 

like a grandfather first to become a president (16).    

 

After “the real change”, the black brothers destroyed all the shacks in 

Paradise. People lost so many things. Many people had no place to live again. 

Many died of hunger because of change. This is a terrible period in Zimbabwe 

under their sit-tight leader, Robert Mugabe. If you are working against the 

president and clamor for change, you will be killed. Many people died young 

because of bad leadership. People flee Paradise in droves. They “move”, 

“run”, “migrate”, “go”, “desert”, “quit”, “fly”, and “flee” across borders. The 

only people remaining were very old people. The people of Paradise deserted 

their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces, 

and hunger in their stomachs and footsteps. They were traumatized. They left 

because it is no longer possible to stay. Darling and her friends now wandered 

from place to place searching for something to eat and steal. They are deserted 

by their parents. Darling’s mother now found another lover with whom she 

sleeps at night as the husband has left her to South Africa. 

 

Conclusion 

Fofo and Baby T. in Faceless, Darling and her friends in We Need New Names 

ended up in the streets because they were products of homes where either of 

the parents, is quite irresponsible. The effects of parental deprivation are 

extremely adverse on the children and the society at large. The children 

experience exploitation and abuse in different ways: sexual, economic, social 

and physical. They also go through emotional and psychological turmoil. 

Baby T. in Faceless has her right of life violated. Darling and her friend’s 

dream of becoming doctors and nurses did not materialize. Fofo’s dream of 

sleeping in a comfortable house is aborted. The trauma faced by Chipo lingers 

through her life. The incest committed by Chipo’s grandfather has started the 

cycle that denies her the most basic rights to learn, develop and be a child. 

These children of the streets in Faceless and We Need New Names lack basic 

needs of life. Their rights to safe accommodation and alternative care were 

violated. This paper advocates the protection of all street children in Africa. 

 

 

 

 

 



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Works Cited 

Amma, Darks. Faceless. Sub-Sahara, 2003  

Bulawayo, Noviolate. We Need New Names. Vintage, 2003 

Kleges, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide to the Perplexed. Continuum, 2006. 

Nwachukwu-Agbada, J.O.J et al. Literature in English 2016-2020. 

IbadanUP,2014 

Nolen-Lekseing, Sussan. Abnormal Psychology. Oxford UP, 2002  

Republic of the Marshal Islands. Child Rights Act. Republic of the Marshal 

Islands, 2015. 

Uwechie, Ralph. Africa Today: Ghana Britanica Books, 1996.   

Wordsworth, William. “The Child is the father of the Man”. Elements of 

Literature: Sixth Course Literature of Britain with World Classics, 

edited by Mairead Stack et al, Holt, Rineheart and Winston, 2000. 

World Health Organization. Street Children: A Global Concern. UN, 2000. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


