Parents of children found on Port Moresby streets will sign agreements with the National Office for Child and Family Services (NOCFS) to keep them off streets, as Phase Four intensifies parental accountability through awareness, counselling and advocacy.
NOCFS Chief Executive Officer Jerry Wap said parents who breached the agreements could face punishment, including imprisonment, for neglecting their children.
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Mr. Wap announced this when opening Phase Four of the Street Children Response Program (SCRP) at the NOCFS office in Port Moresby last week.
The new phase focuses on awareness, advocacy and parental engagement.
“In the parental engagement component of the program, we will find the parents of these street children and have them sign an agreement with the NOCFS,” Mr. Wap said.
“In that agreement, they will make a commitment not to let their children wander aimlessly on the streets of Port Moresby,” he said.
He said the plan was not to scare parents but to educate them about children’s rights and remind them of their responsibilities.
Under this phase, NOCFS officers and their partners will identify the parents of street children, counsel them about their duties and have them sign the agreement.
The latest phase follows the first three stages of the program, which involved identifying street children, processing their cases and returning them to their families and communities. The work was carried out in Port Moresby and other centres, including Mt Hagen, Lae and Kokopo.
According to Mr. Wap, about 235 children were identified during the first three phases and helped to return to their communities, go back to school, stay in safe care centres or receive assistance from health workers.
He added that the SCRP was a National Government program launched two years ago to remove children from the streets and help them return to their communities.
Mr. Wap said research had identified three groups of street children in Papua New Guinea: children who come from villages and settlements to work on the streets, children who live on the streets permanently, and families who live and work on the streets.
“The street children issue has been here for a very long time,” he said, adding that NOCFS was bringing relevant agencies and partners together to address the problem.
The NOCFS chief executive said the main aim was to ensure children were safe and had access to education, housing and parental care.
“Every child in this country has the right to be educated, to live in a house, have the right to go to school and have the right to parents. That’s the information that we want to relay to the public,” Mr. Wap said.
The five-day awareness program started last Tuesday and ended on Saturday, covering residential areas in the Moresby North-West, North-East and Moresby South electorates.
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Participating organisations include the National Capital District Commission, National Department of Education, Port Moresby General Hospital Welfare Division, the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary and Out-of-Home Care Centres.
Mr. Wap said Phase Four would also be carried out in other major centres after the initial rollout in Port Moresby.