Welcome to Burma Extract: The Street Children of Rangoon

At the US Cafe is Ne Win Htun, only off the streets for four weeks and struggling with his new surroundings. Insecure, demanding attention, smashing things, throwing tantrums. I watch him as he dances in front of a mirror and then combs and re-combs his hair. He often sleeps in Peter’s room and when he does he has a habit of crawling into Peter’s bed half way through the night and cuddling in like a baby. Then, yesterday, in a pique of anger, he smashed the guitar of one of the other employees at the US Café. Peter says it’s borderline whether he will run off, stay, or do something so destructive that it will no longer be possible for him to remain where he is.

Difficult, unstable, no confidence, socially inadequate, self-destructive – characteristics of young children who live on the streets without having had the support of a family. Same problems that you see with street children everywhere, says Peter.

We leave the US Cafe and see the children that are not quite so fortunate as Ne Win Htun. These are the scruffy, barefoot, rag-tag, unkempt, tatty little street urchins of the night that come out of their hiding spots once downtown Rangoon is deserted. It is not safe for them to come out during the day. They loiter, argue, scrounge, hang around, sometimes steal. Orphans. Street kids. Children with faces and heads often scarred from beatings. The poorest of the poor in one of the world’s poorest countries.

We meet Noisy Boy, Cheeky Monkey, and Indy whose name comes from the cap he wears and which makes him look like the boy from Indiana Jones. Peter has names for them all. These are real street children, not so lucky, the sleeping under bridges and in doorways brigade, aged anything from six to their mid teens.

At the moment many of them are sporting tufty patchwork haircuts – last night people came along and shaved off chunks and strips of their hair making them look ludicrous. The children don’t say who did it and claim that they slept through the event. Peter thinks they are too scared to say that it was people from the government who were responsible.

That makes sense.

Peter looks after these children to the best of his ability – he makes sure that they eat, he tries to help them find work and foster families, he sees them every day, and he organizes donations for them from travellers, often odd things that travellers no longer need like mirrors or combs or toys or caps or washing items. But sometimes the donations are money – left over kyat or FECs which it is illegal to change back into USdollars or to take out of the country.

Peter’s ultimate goal, however, is to establish a home for these children, a refuge in which they can stay for as long as they want or need, somewhere that they can be safe. As it stands, the streets are full of bad influences – theft, bullying, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, sexual abuse, harassment, all are rife on the streets, particularly amongst the older street children who abuse the younger ones.

“Got to get to the young ones before the older ones have too much influence,” says Peter.

I meet Wim Pyu whilst I am eating at a roadside food stall. He collects plastic bottles to make money – 2 kyat or 1/3 of a US cent per bottle and he can usually collect twenty a day. Last night an older child took his bottles from him so tonight Peter buys Wim Pyu food and gives him 25 kyat for the bottles. Poor little bugger with his patchwork head. He likes to walk along and hold your hand for security.

Eight year olds, ten year olds, twelve year olds, scavenging out an existence.

It’s so as to be able to curb incidents such as the bottle stealing that Peter wants some sort of shelter for these children.

The military government does not appreciate this western interference in Burmese affairs and the police and the military hassle Peter on an almost daily basis. When they catch up with him they pull him over and question him about his activities. They tell him to leave the children alone, they tell him that if he continues they will round up the children and take them to orphanages. This, says Peter, is a fate worse than the streets. Burmese orphanages are playgrounds for paedophilia, mistreatment, and child labour.

Yesterday military intelligence pulled Peter over and gave him the sternest warning that he has yet received. Stop, they said, or you will be deported. Then, that night, the mysterious tufty patchwork head shavings. One boy had one side of his head completely shaved. Another all but a tuft on the front. Others had streaks and random bald patches the size of saucers cut from their scalps. But the children maintain that they slept through this. Impossible. Peter thinks that this is the army’s way of saying to him, “We can do anything to these children and you can’t do anything about it so do as we say.”

A bizarre and malicious way of getting a message across.

Peter says to the assembled children that he will take them all to the barber tomorrow to have their heads completely shaved. He promises that he too will have his head shaved. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to do that for years,” he says.

We eat, we have ice cream, we check on more children. Wandering through the streets, some of the older children tell Peter that government inspectors are out and about and looking for him. Quite clearly the Burmese military do not want these children to exist, certainly they don’t want them visible to westerners, and certainly they don’t want a westerner to be involved in helping them.

So for these little urchins of the most hopeless and destitute variety, bad luck.

We stop and I take photos of the children in doorways and the side streets of Rangoon. Eerie photos of small, dark, shadowy figures with bald heads and dressed in filthy rags.

A car stops about forty metres away. The driver and passengers are clearly watching us. “Military Intelligence,” says Peter and beats a hasty retreat. I keep taking photos but very soon loose me nerve and rejoin Peter at the US Café.

Good bloke Peter, only twenty one years old.