Street Children (Congo)     (18/10/06)

Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab): I am pleased to have securedthis debate, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State for International Development will respond. The fact that he is with us this morning shows the significance that he places on the subject.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has had a turbulent recent history. Colleagues in the Chamber today will be au fait with events of the past 40 years, but during the past decade thousands of child soldiers have been thrown to the forefront of the conflict. The United Nations mission to Congo—MONUC—was deployed in the DRC in 2003, and it now constitutes the largest peacekeeping force in the world.

Living without shelter, access to health care and food has meant according to current estimates that, since the conflict began in 1996-97, 4 million people have died over and above what would normally be expected. That is a colossal increase in mortality. It is the most lethal conflict since the second world war, and most of the dead are women and children. The lives of the children, more than anyone else, continue to be devastated by the ongoing conflict in the east of the country.

War not only kills children but destroys the infrastructure that provides them with food, medicine, education and shelter—the very social fabric that would otherwise provide them with protection, care and hope. As a result, many children living with the consequences of war end up being conscripted into armed groups, are accused of being witches or are forced to undertake dangerous and exploitative work just to survive. Invariably they are pushed into a life on the streets.

There are more than 250,000 homeless children in the DRC. More than 40,000 children live and work on the streets of Kinshasa alone. These children are regularly beaten and sometimes even murdered. They are subject to frequent sexual abuse and, due to the lack of health care, die from illnesses that are both preventable and curable. In general, they have no access to education.

Our Government are the largest European Union provider of bilateral funds to the DRC. They have committed the support of the British public to the people of that nation. It is a long-term commitment that will help build a viable nation and establish the security and opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty. In June 2005, the all-party parliamentary group on street children received a report, “Your War is Not With Me”, from the British charity, War Child. As a result, the charity was invited to make a presentation on the street child crisis in the DRC to the all-party group. In turn, that led to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and I, the co-chairmen of the group, visiting Kinshasa last month. The visit engaged street children and established an informed basis on which our group can support the efforts of the Government and the international community in responding to this acute crisis.

Unemployment and a lack of income-generating opportunities have stretched the capacity of households to function as viable, economic units. Divorce is increasingly common, and those children who are left with their mother are a burden that the extended family can rarely bear. Many children therefore end up working on the streets. Children who remain with their father are often marginalised by their stepmother in order to create the economic space to provide for her own children. Increasingly, HIV/AIDS results in the death of both parents, leaving children with the extended family, which is rarely able to care for them.

Within that framework, fetish priests turned pastors have established thousands of private, revivalist churches in the major cities. Some of those fetish pastors regularly accuse children of witchcraft. For example, if a pastor is unable to cure a parent of illness through prayer, he will claim that a bewitched child in the family is the obstacle and request additional fees to perform an exorcism. Those children are often tortured in unimaginable ways by the fetish pastor as part of the exorcism process. That abuse is enabled by a widespread lack of education, which makes parents vulnerable to the exploitation of a deep-seated belief in witchcraft. Accusation of sorcery and witchcraft is the single largest factor resulting in children being pushed out of their families and on to the streets of the DRC.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough and I were fortunate enough to visit some of the centres that War Child is supporting which provide shelter and protection for some of the younger street children and help with family tracing, mediation and reintegration. War Child also arranged for us to meet some of the youths who are still living on the streets. I want to give Members a couple of examples of children who found themselves on the street and describe some of the challenges that they faced—and still face.

Joseph was nine years old when his parents died of HIV/AIDS. He became a burden to the extended family as an extra mouth to feed. A local fetish pastor accused Joseph of bewitching his parents and causing their deaths. The extended family beat him, and he was finally pushed on to the streets. He slept at the local market, scavenging for food, occasionally stealing, and earning pennies by carrying heavy bags and sacks of produce for people. The police would regularly seek him out, also accusing him of witchcraft and telling him that he could not stay at the market. On one occasion he was kicked so hard by a police officer that two of his ribs were broken. Eventually, Joseph found his way to the Ameema abandoned children’s centre, which is supported by War Child. He is now safe, and trained War Child staff are trying to reintegrate him gradually with his family, but the process will take time, as strongly held attitudes have to be overcome.

Evelyn’s mother suffers from epilepsy, which makes it difficult for her to work and to generate income. Her father left them because of that, and Evelyn and her mother turned to the extended family for support. Epilepsy is not well understood, and Evelyn’s mother was accused of witchcraft and shunned by her family. She became separated from Evelyn, who was a baby at the time and was left to the care of her grandmother. Evelyn grew up believing that her grandmother was her real mother, but other children would tease her that her mother was a witch. Evelyn eventually tried to find her real mother and made contact with her, but she was accused of consorting with a witch and was pushed on to the streets, where she joined her mother. Evelyn was repeatedly raped during her time on the streets, and at the age of 12 she fell pregnant. Soon after that, Evelyn and her baby were identified and were helped by one of the abandoned children’s centres supported by War Child.

Accusations of sorcery and witchcraft are the primary reasons why children end up on the street in the DRC, but the phenomenon is compounded by an increasing divorce rate in the face of high unemployment and extremely low income.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): When I went to the DRC some years ago it was wonderful to see what War Child was doing. I visited a nun who was the embodiment of the Christian spirit. The biggest concern was finding employment for the younger people whom they got off the streets. There did not seem to be that much practical work for them, so effectively the charity cared for them until they were more mature. What opportunities does my hon. Friend think there are, because that will be the test?

Mr. Brown: From what I witnessed in my short time there, I know that my hon. Friend is correct. I share his concern and I will come on to that, as some good work is going on but it very much needs to be extended.

It is common for children to have to work on the streets and fend for themselves during the day, because their families are simply unable to care for them. Those street-working children are particularly vulnerable to becoming fully fledged children of the streets. As well as the 40,000 street children in Kinshasa, there are thousands more in other cities such as Mbuji-Mayi, Bukavu, Lubumbashi and Goma. The street child problem in the DRC is at crisis level. Street children survive through begging and stealing, which brings them into conflict with the law. Many undertake arduous work such as portering and regularly smoke marijuana to numb the effect of the reality in which they live.

Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that some progress is being made by the Government of the DRC in developing legislation and judicial codes as a platform for juvenile justice and as a basis for dealing with fetish pastors and abuses against children. That progress is limited to the commitment of individual civil servants who are rarely paid and is primarily confined to paper in a country where justice is rarely applied and more often corrupted.

Non-governmental organisations including international charities such as War Child are supporting locally run centres in the provision of family tracing, mediation and reintegration of street children. They are also providing income-generating support for street youths, but there is no coherent structure to bring those efforts together in a focused and co-ordinated way to maximise the limited resources available for addressing the crisis. Many of the civil servants and key service providers rarely receive salaries, so have to spend their time developing other forms of income.

Why is the street child crisis in the DRC anything to do with us? Why should our Government seek to allocate time, money and expertise to resolving the crisis, when we are already doing so much in the DRC? Street children in the DRC suffer unimaginable poverty. The marginalisation and suffering that extreme poverty brings is a frightening indicator of state destabilisation. Destabilised states such as the DRC become havens of unrest, violence and even regional and global insecurity. We need only to look to Afghanistan as a typical example of that. It is well recognised by the Department for International Development, which is investing upwards of £60 million per year, and more broadly by the UK Government, who have invested upwards of £30 million in the election process in the DRC. It is in the interests of national security to work with partners from the developed world in creating stable, viable states throughout the developing world and in so doing combat the cancer of poverty.

It is also important that we recognise the established and deep commitment of the British public to addressing poverty, especially among the most marginalised people such as street children. That was demonstrated by the mass participation in and commitment to the Make Poverty History campaign, and is reflected in the millennium development goals to which the UK Government have already signed up.

As a signatory to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, the Government are committed to securing the rights of children by “Recognizing the importance of international co-operation for improving the living conditions of children in every country, in particular in the developing countries”.

The British economy is the fourth largest in the world, which establishes the UK as one of the most significant signatories to the convention on the rights of the child. The UK must therefore take a significant proportion of responsibility for ensuring that the rights of children, especially those who are marginalised, are realised in countries such as the DRC.

The all-party parliamentary group on street children is considering some draft proposals based on the fact that the UK Government have significant influence as well as responsibility in the DRC because of the scale of the commitment made on behalf of the British people. Consideration should be given to investment in education sector reform. Development is crucial both in formal and non-formal education, and the inclusion of women is especially important. The education of women will reduce their vulnerability and indirectly the vulnerability of their children. The education of children, especially marginalised children, will establish a key socialising process in its own right and a basis on which exclusion can be overcome. Crucially, education per se will address the deep-seated belief in witchcraft and the subsequent vulnerability of many children. That must be a priority for DFID and, through Foreign Office lobbying, for the European Union.

Investment is required in the strategic architecture to ensure focus, direction, best practice and coherence across all agencies working with marginalised children in the DRC, especially street children. At the broadest level, that should involve the allocation of resources and technical assistance to support the Government of the DRC in developing a plan for the implementation of the convention on the rights of the child to which the DRC is already a signatory. That plan must make specific reference to marginalised groups of children, especially street children and those formerly associated with fighting forces as child soldiers. The key elements of the plan and specific mention of street children must be reflected in DFID’s country engagement plan and subsequently the country strategy that is being developed. Also, the key elements of the plan must be championed by Foreign Office policy and in its advocacy efforts with other significant bilateral and multilateral partners of the Government of the DRC, especially the EU.

Clear human rights indicators that refer to the status of marginalised children must be developed as part of the national plan to implement the convention on the rights of the child. Investment in the capacity of state actors to service and protect the rights of marginalised children and in civil society to monitor those indictors, with specific reference to street children and children formerly associated with fighting forces, will be required. On that basis, targets to improve the status of marginalised children must be agreed with the Government of the DRC and a resourcing strategy must be negotiated to meet those targets and ensure that they are achieved. As a result of the extreme levels of corruption and impunity, the achievements of those targets and verification of indictors must become a conditional element of the UK Government’s aid provision to the DRC.

War Child will be undertaking participatory research with street children in Kinshasa by the end of this year. The learning from work of NGOs such as War Child must be channelled into the UK Government’s strategic engagement with the Government of the DRC, not least through the Foreign Office and DFID’s developing country strategy for the DRC. In that way we will facilitate a crucial element of the convention on the rights of the child by ensuring that children are listened to.

Finally, the UK Government must work closely with civil society, especially local and international NGOs and Churches, with the Government of the DRC and through local business networks. That work should be the basis for the development of a national strategy that will support the development of micro-enterprise nurseries, training and practical income-generating initiatives across acutely vulnerable communities.

I will conclude, because I know that colleagues want to take part in today’s debate. I look forward to the Secretary of State’s response and thank him for giving a commitment to meet a delegation from the all-party parliamentary group at the end of this month—I am delighted about that, as are my colleagues. I put on record my thanks to War Child for giving me and the hon. Member for Gainsborough the opportunity to visit the country to see the work that goes on. War Child is to be congratulated on its efforts. A major task lies before it and everyone else involved with the issue.

Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown). As he said, we visited the DRC recently. It has about the same population as the UK, although it is the size of western Europe. Throughout the major cities the national street population could be more than 60,000—that is an estimate as we cannot be completely accurate—which is 0.1 per cent. of the entire population. That does not include tens of thousands of children made homeless by displacement because of the continuing conflict in the east. Some 50 per cent. of the republic’s population are children and 47 per cent. are under 14. As one walks around Kinshasa, as we did, it is extraordinary to see the sheer youth of the population—the impression is overwhelming. One hardly ever sees old people, and I was pretty well the oldest person that I came across during the entire week that we spent there, which is rather strange for someone from this country. I assume that the difficulty of living is such that all the old people are dead—not to put too fine a point on it. Some of the children on the streets were born there, and there is now a second generation of children living on the streets. On our visits, we regularly saw very young women—teenagers—with infants on the streets. This is therefore a crisis of staggering proportions, in what is the poorest country in the world.

My colleague, the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway, explained why so many children end up on the streets, but the problem is made far worse by the system of organised kleptocracy initiated by Mr. Mobutu. We talked to several politicians, who, in my view, are a sorry lot of people. They were the only people who appeared to have any sort of carpets, computers or anything in their offices. The senior civil servants that we talked to—the equivalent of permanent secretaries in our system— had nothing. We talked to one who literally lived in a bare office, with no salary, no computer and with just a coat hanger on the wall. He was clearly doing a wonderful job with absolutely no resources. Of course, we were treated politely by politicians, as I would hope, given that this country is one of the DRC’s main bilateral funders.

When it came to it, most of the politicians that we met were honest enough to admit that, before the elections, they had been concerned that the fetish pastors had too much political power to be dealt with. When one goes around Kinshasa, it is staggering to see the sheer volume of new churches that are going up, and the politicians do not have the political will to deal with that growing number of churches. In theory, churches are supposed to be registered, and the constitution absolutely forbids people from dealing with children as though they were witches. As I said, however, the politicians ignore the street child problem.

I should say that there is absolutely no evidence that the mainstream Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, are involved in these practices, and many of the new evangelical Churches do a good job. However, there is a relatively small number of fetish pastors who make a living by denouncing children as witches. It is an extraordinary situation. People in extended families are under such economic pressure that they simply cannot cope with another child. That child’s parents might have died from AIDS or other causes, but the pastor is brought in and literally accuses the child there and then of being a witch. Sometimes the child is tortured and, more often than not, they are thrown out on to the streets. This is therefore a real problem, and I was staggered by it. People in this country joke a bit about witches and do not take the issue entirely seriously. We thought of writing to J.K. Rowling, who has made a lot of money talking about witchcraft. Perhaps she could donate a bit of money to deal with a situation in which witchcraft is a serious problem and in which tens of thousands of children suffer as a result of being accused of being witches.

It is common for governors to round up and incarcerate children regularly; indeed, the policy is popular with the general population because many street children are unpopular with them. During one round-up, the police beat a boy called Kondikor, from the Delveaux area of Kinshasa, on the head with an iron bar and then the butt of a gun, before leaving him to die in the street. We met the governor of Kinshasa. I have never seen a man with so many mobile phones in his office—apparently, he needs at least one to contact his various girlfriends. He was one of the few people we met who had any kind of affluence about his person, but he has now been removed by a military governor, thank God. He was a very warm personality and claimed that he was a personal friend of the street children. He said that he had found a number of jobs for them, including 700 jobs as street cleaners. We thought that that was an interesting initiative, so we went on to the streets to talk to some of those street cleaners. As it happened, some of those jobs had been created—with western aid, it must be said—but they had all gone to the families of existing street cleaners, not the street children. So much for the efforts of the governor of Kinshasa.

As the DRC takes its first faltering steps towards democracy, street children are becoming more vulnerable. Democracy à la DRC sees politicians mobilise large groups of street children for their political rallies. That leads the children back into confrontation with the law, resulting in beatings, incarceration and further abuse. The politicians then blame the children, thereby reinforcing negative popular opinion, and the whole thing goes around in a circle. In the meantime, many of these children are held in detention without trial. Incidentally, I should say that although we call them children all the time, and a lot of children are involved, there are also a lot of young men, and we met men in their early 20s who had never had a home.

Contrary to the advice of the Foreign Office, we went out in the evening and walked around the city. It is perfectly safe, and there was no fear that one was threatened in any way. We talked to a number of street children, and here are some of their testimonies. Philippe is 14 and was accused of sorcery, which is why he was forced out of his family and on to the streets three years ago. He collects leaves, which he sells on to people who use them for mulch and composting as part of their subsistence farming practices in Kinshasa. Incidentally, there is no public park in the city; if there were, it would immediately be reduced to allotments, such is the poverty. However, there is one park in the middle of Kinshasa—it is run by Lebanese as a private golf course. I have never seen a private golf course in the middle of a capital city. The monthly subscription is $400. Imagine that! That $400 would pay for a child’s education for a whole year.

Philippe augmented his income by helping to push carts around the city, transporting goods for local business people. We saw his home: he sleeps by the stadium in a large pipe near a pile of excreta on the muddy ground. The police come round two or three nights a week and extort what little money he earns, and he and his friends are regularly beaten. He told us of another boy, Joel, who was 10 years old. He was selling leaves to some policemen, but they refused to pay, so he complained. They beat him so badly that after they had pushed him into a drainage ditch, he did not have the strength to pull himself out and drowned.

We then talked to P.Y. from Delveaux. He hobbled into a filthy bar where we were meeting some young adults and older children. This young man had been attacked by police, who were trying to take his miserable, hard-earned pennies from him. As he fled, he tripped up. One of the policemen took a machete and chopped him in the knee. The wound had been dressed by a Catholic priest just before we met the boy, who was clearly in a lot of pain. None the less, he felt that he had been very lucky. Lucky? Being mugged by policemen and having one’s knee sliced with a machete is lucky? These children live in a world that we can barely comprehend.

However, there is hope, which is why we are here today. The United Kingdom is the DRC’s largest European Union bilateral funder, so we have some influence. As my colleague the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway said, we have the traction and leverage to influence the DRC Government. We can also influence individual politicians, although they are largely at fault in this, and senior civil servants—the ones we met were a hard-working and honest lot of people. We can encourage them to address impunity, corruption, exploitation and the abuse of the most marginalised people—particularly children.

As the DRC takes faltering steps towards democracy, it is important that the British Government use their influence to help those outside the democratic process. The children and young people that we are discussing are not involved in that process, except as spear carriers—often literally—at political rallies.

We must be ever mindful of value for money. We are talking about our taxpayers’ money and we must make sure that it has an effect. We met the ambassador, Andy Sparkes, who I thought was very impressive. He gave us his time generously and I pay tribute to him. He is a man who cares about what is happening in the country and I want to quote what he told us: “Accusations of sorcery are a convenient excuse for a particularly cruel way of dealing with poverty, and religion is used as its pretext. Cruelty like this should be punished, regardless of whether it is executed in the name of religion or not. It is not natural for Congolese to behave in this way. It is a recent phenomenon. The consequences of war and the subsequent massive aggravation of poverty is being exploited by a small number of pastors from private, revivalist churches who use vulnerable children as a platform upon which to exploit families that are struggling to feed themselves. And they will charge them to do this!”

Indeed, it is not natural for Congolese people to engage in the practice of accusations of witchcraft. It is a relatively new phenomenon and if there were real political will— it is against the law—and if the western powers were to use their influence and, of course, take greater steps towards dealing with poverty, I am sure that, eventually, we could get a grip on it.

The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway has already dealt with some of the recommendations, and I want to emphasise them, as we have the Secretary of State with us today. I am delighted that he chose to come here himself, rather than sending a junior Minister. That shows the importance that he attaches to the problem and the all-party group is very pleased to see him here. We think that the main thing is to address the problem of impunity and corruption. With that in mind, we believe that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s bilateral fund should be used to invest in tactical, high-focus, high-impact but reasonably inexpensive projects.

I was very impressed by the work of War Child and some other charities in dealing with the problem on a micro level and creating small funds of perhaps a couple of hundred dollars, and not just giving them to a child or young person but training them. One of the children whom we heard about set up a new business with the help of that $200 and got himself off the streets by setting up a television set in his village, as a kind of local cinema. Television sets are still relatively rare, and he was making a living in that way.

The other vital thing—this is where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office can help—is to help with the training of, and payment of salaries to, a small number of magistrates dealing with juvenile justice matters. There is no law in the country. No one is paid. The police, the army, magistrates and judges are not paid, so they must be corrupt just to survive. Therefore there is no justice. If there is an accusation against a pastor concerning witchcraft and it comes before a magistrate it will be thrown out, because the pastor will simply bribe the magistrate. In a way the magistrate is not a wicked person; no one is wicked in that situation. We can imagine what would happen if none of us were paid—none of our police or soldiers, none of our civil servants or the Clerks of the House; we would all have to be corrupt to survive. The Department can help with this, and try to make things better.

I suggest the establishment of a legal aid fund to tackle targeted cases and the promotion of those cases across the media as high-profile wins. It was made clear to us that there have been virtually no prosecutions. I do not think that there have been any successful prosecutions—or perhaps there has been one in the entire country—of pastors who accuse children of being witches. If we had a few high-profile wins and could create a small corps of magistrates prepared to deal with the matter in a proper way, we might get the notion established in people’s mind that it is a criminal offence and that people will be punished for it. Then we could perhaps help with the training of specialised police units that could deal specifically with street children.

Such projects could be combined with the provision of awareness training projects for fetish pastors. We went to a training project for fetish pastors with Save the Children, which does a wonderful job. We talked to a former fetish pastor who was now a mainstream evangelical pastor doing a perfectly good job and who freely admitted that what he had done in the past was wrong. He had undergone training with Save the Children and seen the error of his ways. We saw him sitting down with other pastors, trying to convince them that theirs was not the way forward.

As we have so much influence, as a large donor, can we not use it to agree sanctions with other EU heads of mission against local top politicians—especially governors? They are involved—and there is ample proof of this—in the arbitrary arrest, beating and death of street children. Those politicians are very sensitive to sanctions by the EU. By the way, they are also very angry with us and with the EU because they complain all the time that we give money direct to the people and not to the Government. I think that it is an extremely good thing that we do, and I congratulate the Government on it.

It was a searing experience to walk around Kinshasa. The country has obviously been utterly ruined. It is now at the bottom of the world heap. I pay tribute to the personal commitment of the Secretary of State and I look forward to hearing what he will tell us today about attempts to improve the situation, even in a small way. Even if he saves only a few hundred street children from an appalling fate the whole House will, I think, be very grateful to him.

Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley) (Lab): I was privileged to go as an international observer to the elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a group of hon. Members from the all-party group on the great lakes region and genocide prevention. I want to express my gratitude to Christian Aid, which was my host and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), and which will fund me to go back for the second round of elections at the end of next week, for the presidential run-offs on 29 October. I also thank the other organisations, such as War Child, which fund our all-party parliamentary group. Without them we would not be able to do the work that we do.

The elections were very impressive. They mostly went off peacefully, without a great deal of difficulty and with great enthusiasm from people for voting. They were mostly well run, with a few difficulties and hiccups. After the elections we saw how easy it is for violence to erupt, with the death of 23 people in Kinshasa. Given the continuing tension and the fact that the two remaining presidential candidates have their own armed forces and that other people have arms, the potential for further violence can be seen. At this point I want to note our condemnation of the beating up, last week in London, of President Kabila’s chef de cabinet, Leonard She Okitundu, who had been visiting members of the all-party group and the Foreign Office. I condemn violence from whatever quarter, whatever the reason for it.

Given the way in which, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) pointed out, street children have been used as part of the political process—rounded up and used on the streets—they may be particularly vulnerable if there is any potential for violence in the run-up to the next round of elections, and subsequently. We need to be aware of that. I think that it is important—I know that the Secretary of State has this in mind and has already taken action on it—that the UK Government should make every effort to emphasise to the two candidates and the other people involved in the political process, such as the parties and those who have been elected to the new National Assembly, that it is their responsibility to ensure a continuing peaceful round for the next elections and subsequently; to protect the most marginalised groups such as the street children; and to take on board the issues already raised so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), whom I congratulate on opening the debate, and the hon. Member for Gainsborough.

We have a huge responsibility to keep with the process for a long time. This is just the start of the process. There are many things we need to do to put pressure on all political parties to take seriously the issues to do with street children. Those include trying to ensure that there is training on and, at least, awareness of the issues in the local law enforcement and security agencies, whose approach to street children at the moment is often more part of the problem than an attempt to deal with those issues.

I shall return to the matter of the elections and the situation thereafter, but I want to mention that while hon. Members were in the country for the first round of elections we had the opportunity to visit some projects involving street children. With some of my colleagues, I visited a project run by Save the Children, which has 15 projects. I remember seeing Ilunga, who was not accused of being a witch, as many children are, but whose parents had died in a diamond mining accident and who had then traipsed across the country to be taken in by his grandparents in Kinshasa. They threw him out because they did not have the money to look after him. Then he lost touch with his brother. He is living by himself on the streets of Kinshasa, going into that project during the day and making money by collecting rubbish from people’s houses and taking it to the dump. Given the state of the streets in Kinshasa and Congo generally, he is probably one of the few people who do go round collecting rubbish, but he looked so forlorn, so miserable. He had such a sad long face until we did the trick of taking photos and showing them to him, which always brings great smiles to the faces of the children, but he had looked so forlorn that our hearts went out to him and the other children there.

We also visited a War Child project, where a large number of children are living. Many of them had been accused of being witches. To me, they seemed like normal, bubbly, lively children who were living in desperate circumstances and had very few resources to do what they wanted to do. In fact, they were livelier than the children at the project in the middle of Kinshasa. When we talked to them about the elections, we got a better answer on how they were meant to be about getting people to make the country better and life better, than we did from most of the politicians on television. When we asked the children about the elections, they all started yelling, “Kabila, Bemba”. They were very well engaged. One boy we found who was one of the very few receiving an education was very bright and had just come top of the exams in his class, so the potential is there. Many of these children have been accused of being witches, yet to me they are just normal, bright, lively kids.

I did gain a greater understanding of the beliefs behind witchcraft. That is not the only element, but it is a very large element in why the street children are out on the streets. There is also the issue of child soldiers and their re-engagement into society, which we have not touched on as much as we might have.

A very good Save the Children pamphlet called “The Invention of Child Witches in the Democratic Republic of Congo” explains the belief in the spiritual world that is very prevalent in Congo and how that ties in with the issue of dislocation. Interestingly, there is more of a problem in urban areas than in rural areas, which is not necessarily what one would expect when considering the concept of traditional beliefs. Those beliefs are deep-seated. Whether or not we change people’s beliefs on whether witches and sorcery exist, we must say that it is completely unacceptable for children to suffer cruelty and be abused on the basis of what is a false belief.

I was as bemused last year, when I went to America, by the fundamentalist Republicans who told me that people were invaded by Satan, as I am at the idea of there being witches, so I am not sure that we can always say that someone’s belief systems are all that peculiar. Of course, exorcisms still take place in some of our traditional Churches. The key point is that this is not about religion or people’s beliefs; it is about cruelty and child abuse, which must be tackled. That is why Save the Children had been working with a group of pastors to try to say to them that even if they still believed in witchcraft, the children they were seeing were not ones who had been infected by witchcraft and if they did come across any who they believed were, they should deal with them in a way that was not cruel and did not involve physical violence, because that is clearly unacceptable.

Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab): In April, when we visited a Save the Children project in Mbuji-Mayi as part of the all-party group on the great lakes region and genocide prevention, Save the Children gave us a very good leaflet on precisely the issue that my hon. Friend is talking about—how children come to be accused of witchcraft. Such a child may have epilepsy, sleepwalk or be greedy. Their parents may have become unemployed. That could cover almost every child in Congo. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to or had any discussions with non-governmental organisations in the field about the possibility of using television to educate people? The leaflets are all well and good, but they are available only in the areas where the centres are operating, and given the disruptions of war, there are huge areas of the country where people are illiterate and cannot understand the excellent literature produced by the NGOs.

Judy Mallaber: I agree with my hon. Friend and I know that War Child in particular is keen to engage in that type of awareness-raising campaign. The question is whether we tackle people’s beliefs head-on or take action in a different way. How do we get the message over to people so that we confront the issue of accusing children of sorcery, which is clearly, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough said, illegal? We need a campaign that tells people that accusing children of sorcery is not acceptable and that tackles those beliefs, but that will have to be done sensitively. As I said, I know that War Child in particular is keen to tackle that, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may have views on it. Those issues need to be taken on board very seriously and we have a responsibility to keep pressing the new Government and the politicians on the issues. We also met the leaders of the Catholic and Protestant Churches, who have condemned the notion of accusations of witchcraft, but I would certainly urge them to be more strongly proactive, and on a continuing basis. It is important that they do that. We were not altogether convinced about the degree and continuity of that opposition, where those leaders clearly have a role to play.

I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, but I want to say briefly that we need to keep our eye on the outcome of the election because the street children will have a chance only if we have dealt with all the other issues, the key issues, and if we ensure that the newly elected politicians in the National Assembly and provincial government and the president and presidential team deal with those fundamental issues. I am thinking particularly of the security situation. They need to deal with the question of good governance, corruption and the use of resources because, without that, street children and their problems will never be dealt with. We will not be putting in the necessary resources. We will still be in a position in which the wealth of the country is plundered and it does not get down to taking those key issues on board and dealing with them.

Mr. Drew: I know that my hon. Friend has to be careful, and I congratulate her on going back to be an election monitor, but does she, like me, have concerns about the stratification of the election results in the first round, and the dangers that that presents in terms of the way in which children in particular will be brought into certain camps? One hopes that voting will be more balanced in the second round; otherwise, there will be difficulties and the risk of the country pulling apart. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Judy Mallaber: I agree that that is a serious problem and I would be interested to hear the Secretary of State’s comments on what we can do. As we were told last week, a lot of work has been taking place on building alliances to try to overcome some of that stratification, but it is a serious danger. One issue is the terms in which the elections were fought, which involves the language that people spoke and so on. I have to say that the situation was similar to our local elections. If, in our council elections in Derbyshire, we put someone up for election in a village who does not come from that village, we get a bad reaction as well, but the stratification in the elections in Congo was extreme and that is a serious issue.

I ask the Secretary of State, in replying to the debate, to assure us—I am sure that he will—that this issue will not be put on the back burner after the elections, that it is a long-term continuing commitment and we will keep applying pressure and that, above all, we will look at dealing with the security situation. Can he say whether there will be a continuing commitment from the international community to co-ordination and international engagement on trying to reform the security system? I am talking about engaging states in saying that we need peace and security for any of the other issues to be dealt with. Will that continue to be a key priority? I also ask my right hon. Friend to press for the role of EUFOR, the European Union force, to be extended beyond the end of November, as is currently proposed, because peace and security are central to other issues that we have been discussing.

How the children are treated tells us everything about the health of a country and a society. We need to consider what we can do to make that society work and function so that those children, including the very bright kids we saw and met, who were absolutely delightful, have some chance of fulfilling their potential. I am talking about putting resources into their education and their future in terms of jobs and so on. That is a reflection of what possibility there is for hope and a future for all the people of Congo, and what possibility there is for having stability in a very important part of Africa that affects us all directly. I shall be interested to hear my right hon. Friend’s comments about what we can do to keep up the pressure on those key issues and to ensure that there is a system of peace, security and reform in the country. How can we keep up the pressure in order to deal with the awful things that happen to those children and the awful lives that they lead, and to give them some common humanity and a future?

Several hon. Members rose—

John Cummings (in the Chair): It is my intention to start the winding-up speeches just after 10.30 am.

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): I shall be brief, because we need to hear those other speeches.

I welcome the debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) on securing it. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) on their excellent contributions. I wish that we had a system that would allow us to show large photographs or film in debates such as this to accompany what we are saying, because it is hard to convey to a European audience the true horror of life for ordinary people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the sense of hopelessness and the complete sense of insecurity that surrounds their lives in every way.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State is here to reply to the debate, and I thank him for his huge personal commitment to give genuine and serious support to aid development in the poorest and most war-torn parts of Africa. That is appreciated and understood by many.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, I was an election observer in the first round of the presidential and parliamentary elections in the DRC. Our visit was funded by Christian Aid. We met a number of non-governmental organisations on our visits to Kinshasa and where we were monitoring elections in Bas-Congo, which was an extremely interesting experience. I agree that the administration of the election on the day in the area that we saw was not too bad, although I have some misgivings about the quality of the counting at regional counting centres and the sheer chaos that surrounded much of that. However, there was clearly an understanding and a wish that the election process should be fair, open and properly run. The training levels and equipment provided were impressive given the situation and the circumstances.

There are nevertheless questions in my mind. On my visits to a number of villages in the Bas-Congo region, I saw that there was no water, poor roads, no schools, no police, no army and no health service, so I wonder what the election is all about. The people are electing representatives to go to some distant place, but will those representatives bring any real improvements to those communities or will they follow the grand tradition of corruption that has bedevilled Congo for the past 30 years and merely feather their own nests by fiddling contracts in Kinshasa while the people of their areas do not benefit in any way?

Serious questions must be asked about what should happen after the election, because if there is to be any confidence in a democratic process, it has to bring about real improvements and changes for the people living in what is a very poor situation in an incredibly wealthy country. There is no question but that the wealth of Congo is astronomical compared with any other African country—indeed, almost any other country in the world. The population is small: as the hon. Member for Gainsborough pointed out, the country is the size of western Europe, it has a population the size of Britain’s, and it has resources that no European country has, so the potential is enormous. The money and wealth that has been taken from Congo, all around the world, is astronomical.

Those serious issues must be addressed, but the debate is about the more specific issue of children in Congo, particularly the victims of the war. When my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley and I went to a number of children’s centres, such as that in Kinshasa, I felt a sense of deep depression and hopelessness for those children. They are victims of war, AIDS, famine, being child soldiers, exploitation, prostitution and crime. Those who are lucky enough to get into some kind of centre at least have a modicum of security for part of the day, but the only way that they can survive is to go out and sell things on the streets of Kinshasa. I asked someone, “How does the economy of the DRC work for most people?” They replied, “Well, you buy things in small quantities and you sell them in even smaller quantities.” It goes on like that. There is very little manufacturing—it is all trading in bits and pieces of imported goods—so there has to be some serious economic development through which genuine jobs are provided in manufacturing and agriculture and all that comes with that.

In relation to the children, several issues must be raised. I welcome the support given by Save the Children, War Child and other charities and organisations which are doing a good job in supporting children in a difficult situation and in challenging the nonsense talked by a number of pastors, their exploitation of faith and religion, and the abominable way in which they treat children. Some of the illegal churches become quite good businesses: a person can set up a church, denounce someone as a witch and then exorcise Satan from their body, and they make quite a bit of money through the exorcisms. That is a vile and cruel business. The nearest example that I can think of is in the novel “Elmer Gantry” and the way in which people are treated in the United States.

What goes on is vile, but it is the product of the society. The hon. Member for Gainsborough explained quite well what goes on: if the police, army, teachers and civil servants are not paid, how on earth are people supposed to survive? The highest priority in Congo has to be the development of universal, free, secular primary education run by the state for the whole country. I do not know the figures—I do not think that anyone does—but I would be surprised if more than 30 per cent. of children go to school. Half the population are teenagers or younger. Logic tells me, and I am sure that everyone would agree, that illiteracy and the number of people with no education whatever is rising. If no education is offered, how are we to challenge the nonsense put forward by some of the pastors? I know that the support given by DFID and others concentrates on those areas, and I hope that the outcome of the election will be peaceful and will develop a Government who are serious about development and providing decent education and health opportunities for the people, particularly the children who have suffered so much.

It is hard for anyone outside Congo or who has never seen it to understand the sheer hopelessness of life for many of the children. They are growing up in a war-torn country and they have to migrate large distances. Often there are no family structures, but even where they exist, as Members have explained, children are commonly thrown out of them and have to survive on the streets of Kinshasa where the public health is appalling and the drainage, sewerage, refuse collection and health systems do not work. The only available health care is the sale of water tablets or bottled water in order to prevent them from contracting some horrible disease from polluted water or the fetid swamps alongside all the major roads in the city. There is a huge job to be done in that respect.

In a sense, the children are the absolute victims. I do not know the death rate or life expectancy figures—again, I do not think that anyone does—but I do know that large numbers of them die and large numbers of them live terrible lives. What kind of adults will children brought up in such an environment turn out to be? Those who have read “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding will have an idea of the horrible situation that those children have grown up in. Logic tells me that if the only life they have known is of begging, dealing, violence, drugs and prostitution, when they become adults they will become the abusers of the next generation of children. We create a cycle of depression and violence and the horror that goes with it.

I want to see enormous change in Congo. Everyone is agreed on the need for that. Some of it can be produced by overseas aid, but, above all, serious political structures that run public services and administration, and that are honest, open and accountable, must be developed. They have been sadly lacking in Congo for most of the past 40 years, and even those who are lucky enough to escape to another country and survive somewhere else suffer from the accompanying disruption.

I have also visited the neighbouring countries of Rwanda and Angola on different occasions. They have also gone through huge levels of disruption and, in many ways, are still dislocated societies. One thing that appeared to be developing quite well in Angola was a fostering system for the large numbers of orphans by way of a small amount of state support given to foster parents. I do not know whether that happens in Congo, but we could look at that area. If we do not, hundreds of thousands of children could grow up in an awful environment, which then creates the cycle of deprivation and violence from which they thought they were escaping in the first place.

I thank the House for having this debate, because the least we can do is support what the Government are trying to do by giving aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Above all, we hope that the politicians in Congo who are lucky enough to be elected to local authorities, the presidency or some other body understand that they have a duty to start delivering the wealth of Congo to the people of Congo.

Susan Kramer (Richmond Park) (LD): This is one of the most distressing debates in which I am likely ever to take part in this House. All the same, I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) on bringing it to the Floor of this Chamber, on taking us, in such a comprehensive way, through the issues and on setting the stage for the debate. It is the beginning of the end child poverty month, so the timing could not be more apt, even if it could not be more upsetting.

As the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) said, this debate is also happening in the context of the second round of presidential elections between President Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba. There is a desperate hope among us all that the elections will be the basis for real progress, but I must say to the Secretary of State, who in a sense sits here for the international community, that the great challenge will be to persuade the loser to lose with grace and not to return the situation to civil war, because if they do that, we will be back where we started.

As Save the Children and others report, the primary victims of the years of civil war, instability and complete economic collapse have been the children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, basic services such as health, education, clean water and social services are beyond the reach of most Congolese children. That is crystallised for many of us in the statistic that one child in five dies before the age of five. He also mentioned that that is perverse in a country that is so rich in natural resources and minerals; it is the country’s curse when it could be its hope.

War and the mass population movements have separated thousands of children from their parents and families. Most appalling is that these impoverished, separated and sometimes abducted children are recruited into armed groups as child soldiers and, in effect, sex slaves. Save the Children has identified 30,000 such cases, but we all know that that must be an understatement. By the end of last year, some 17,000 children had been demobilised and, it was said, reintegrated into their communities. That leaves many more, particularly in the more remote forests where the Mai-Mai militias are, who are completely out of reach. We are hearing about extensive re-recruitment of those children, their engagement in the demonstrations and violence that have been part and parcel of the presidential elections and their then being rejected, drifting to the cities and ending up as part of the street child population.

I was also concerned about informal estimates that 12,000 girls are part of the armed groups and that they are in sexual servitude. Many more have been raped. They are unable then to rejoin society because of the stigma. We hear nothing about the sexual abuse of boys. The reality must be that it is a widespread practice. Are we not at the point where that must be confronted head on? Mention of it seems to be absent in every piece of literature on which I can lay my hands, and I assume that that is for cultural reasons. We must confront and deal with the damage done to the boys, as well as the damage done to the girls.

Yesterday, I was talking to a woman from Sierra Leone—the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), who is the Front-Bench spokesman for the Conservatives, was present at the same meeting—about how poverty drives families to put their children into the sex trade as the only means of generating some income for the family. Obviously, with that goes HIV/AIDS and its repercussions in the collapse of families and of economic and social structures.

As the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, the abandonment of children in urban areas has been the underlying and most fundamental cause of the street children phenomenon, which is the subject of today’s debate. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway gave some numbers. Some 40,000 children are said to be living on the streets of Kinshasa, but other organisations put the numbers far higher. There have been accusations that witchcraft and fetish preachers play a key role in that process. We must take that seriously on a different level. I have dealt with such a case in my constituency. We must recognise that the power of some of these movements extends far beyond the borders of Congo, and that there is an interlinking set of issues. Something like this is inexplicable to me, but we have no choice but to take it head on. While one must recognise cultural norms, I cannot think of an acceptable one that allows children to be treated in that way.

Among the numbers I find no reference to disabled children. One of the issues that I have raised with the Secretary of State is disability, which is so often treated as a cross-cutting issue, but never finds itself on any priority list. I cannot believe that it is not wrapped into many of the problems and issues involving these children in Congo. Disabled children must be the most vulnerable group of these thrown-away kids.

As the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) said, this has been going on so long that there is a second generation on the streets and it is becoming institutionalised. There is little local sympathy. Descriptions such as “feral children” and “vermin” are used. Before we condemn that too heavily, I have heard the same comments in my community about children who are considered to be engaged in antisocial behaviour. We must be careful about our use of language. We can see how, in a sense, it could be extrapolated in situations and we can recognise how appalling the consequences are.

Even for parents who care about their children and want a future, education is beyond reach if they are poor, which is the overwhelming definition of people in Congo. The hon. Member for Islington, North said that he was not sure about the figures for public investment in education. I believe that in the 1980s more than 90 per cent. of children were in primary education, and now the figure is well below the 60 per cent. mark—I assume that it has dropped below half in the most recent years. The investment in education used to be a public subsidy of more than $500 per child, and now the figure is $18 per child. A poor family must find a way to make up that missing number. Some 3.5 million children in Congo are not in primary school and 6 million adolescents are not in education, so the problem is huge. We cannot separate any of those issues from the total collapse of the state, which we will have to address. That falls very much on the doorstep of the Department for International Development.

The hon. Member for Islington, North talked about the importance of focusing on economic development. Given the resources of Congo, if some measure of security can be established, there is surely the potential to find solutions to that issue. It is a credit to the British Government that they have been the largest bilateral donor. I am sure that the Secretary of State will take us through the numbers involved in the commitment, but it is one of which we can be proud.

I close simply by echoing some of the calls that have been made in this Chamber. There have been calls to engage the multilateral community, including the European Union, in ensuring that this remains a priority issue. We require programmes that listen to the needs of children and give them some degree of empowerment, programmes that examine reintegrating the kids and finding ways to get them into jobs, so that there is a change for their future, and programmes that reach girls and disabled children. We need to work with civil society, local non-governmental organisations and churches. Above all, we must ensure, whether through pressure, the structure of aid programmes or the use of influence, that the Congolese Government have and use the resources and expertise, and that training is in place to provide genuine protection for street children and to ensure that people who commit crimes against them are pursued and pay the price.

Mark Simmonds (Boston and Skegness) (Con): I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) on securing this significant debate. He set out clearly the main issues that we should consider and debate today. There were many other significant contributions, particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who powerfully articulated the extent and depth of the near collapse of the governmental infrastructure in Congo. We all hope that the fledgling democratic process that is taking place at the moment will be a new beginning for the country. I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees that the second round of elections at the end of this month will be not the end but the beginning of the international community’s support.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) said correctly that there will be great dangers immediately after the election and we hope that the rule of law will be sustained and that the losing party will acknowledge that it has lost and will take a constructive role as a loyal Opposition. However, sadly, that is not the history of Congo.

I shall not speak for long because I want the Secretary of State to reply to the many good points that were made, but it is important to state that many factors contribute to the number of displaced children and street children in the capital and elsewhere in Congo. The situation is not a simple one of witchcraft, although that is a significant contributory factor. There have been two civil wars and many children were conscripted into the various armed groups. If I have time, I shall return to that. There has been a sharp deterioration in state services and the hon. Member for Richmond Park rightly highlighted the worrying fall in the number of children in primary education during the past decade and certainly during the past 30 or 35 years.

There has been a significant increase in poverty and unemployment, which makes it impossible for parents to afford to look after, feed and clothe their children. Rapid urbanisation and a breakdown in the traditional African support culture have been exacerbated by the conflict, and a significant number of displaced people inevitably find their way to urban areas, which is making the situation more difficult.

There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and it is estimated that 1 million Congolese children have been orphaned by that disease, while 30,000 children die from malaria each and every year. The Secretary of State will be well aware that a lot more could be done with the provision of bed nets, which are not expensive.

An increasingly high prevalence of divorce rates means that children from previous marriages and liaisons are not always welcome in a new marriage. We have heard a lot about the accusations of sorcery and witchcraft and the terrible abuse that takes place as part of that. All that has led to an estimated 250,000 children being homeless in the DRC and 40,000 in the capital. Fifty per cent. of the population are children under the age of 14.

The situation has reached crisis point and has been exacerbated by the presidential and parliamentary elections because the political structures have used street children to destroy their opponents’ campaigns and rallies. Therefore, there has been further unacceptable exploitation, often supported and encouraged by the police who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said, are not remunerated by the state.

One area that has not been covered sufficiently during this debate is the reintegration of child soldiers into the community. The Opposition welcome the investment in the multicountry demobilisation and reintegration programme. However, estimates suggest that at least one third of child soldiers—11,000—are not reintegrated with their families and communities. If the Secretary of State has time, will he explain what his Department is doing to try to improve the number of children who are reintegrated? Obviously, there is great suffering, abuse and trauma, much of which needs special mental and medical treatment. It has been estimated that at the end of June 2006 CONADER, which is charged with the reintegration of child soldiers into the community, had not implemented a single community-based economic reintegration project for children, leaving nongovernmental organisations to bear the brunt of the burden of the reintegration programme. I thank the NGOs that are operating in Congo for all their hard work. What steps is DFID taking to assist the reintegration, and to ensure that CONADER meets the criteria that were set down and uses its funding properly, for the purposes for which it was intended? What is the time scale for that programme?

Corruption is another big issue that must be addressed—my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough made several points about corruption. The structures of the state must be rebuilt and reinvigorated, so that the Government can deliver and implement some of the new legislation that they have been trying to get through, particularly to reform the legislative and judicial system to protect street children.

I have a couple more questions for the Secretary of State. What progress is being made to develop the DRC poverty reduction strategy paper and will he encourage the DRC Government after the elections to make a commitment to street children in that poverty reduction strategy? My understanding is that there is no such commitment. In May 2006, only 20 per cent. of the current humanitarian action plan for the DRC had been funded—$682 million was required to fund humanitarian needs and the shortfall could leave 10 million people without the life-saving funding that they require. It would be helpful if the Secretary of State could say what his Department is doing to try to put pressure on others to ensure that that commitment is fully met.

For the conflict to come to a complete end, there must be a significant reduction in the number of weapons in circulation in Congo. That requires schemes to collect existing weapons as well as the introduction of tighter controls to stop new weapons entering the country. We were all disappointed with the results of the small arms negotiations in New York earlier this year. What pressure and mechanisms is DFID putting in place to reduce the number of small weapons in circulation in the DRC.?

In conclusion, to my mind the key to the problem is improvement in education and putting structures in place to enable street children and others in Congo to be educated to take a fuller part in the development of their country and to enable it to move on from its terrible history, not just of the past 30 years but of the previous 150 years.

The Secretary of State for International Development (Hilary Benn): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) on securing this debate and above all on the impressive way in which he set out the nature of this terrible problem. I thank members of the all-party groups on street children and on the great lakes region and genocide prevention, which, with organisations that have been referred to in the debate—Human Rights Watch, War Child, Save the Children and Amnesty International—have produced a series of thoughtful reports that help all of us to keep up the pressure on the Congolese authorities.

I am grateful for the contributions from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), my hon. Friends the Members for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) and for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), and the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) and for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds).

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said that it is a pity we cannot have pictures to look at, but every speech that we have heard has painted a painful picture of what life is like for street children, who are at the forefront of our minds this morning. What we have heard tells us that the DRC at the moment is one of the worst places in which to be born and to grow up. One third of children under the age of five are underweight; less than half of children of primary school age are in school and the number has declined considerably in recent years. Only one in three have access to decent sanitation, and as we heard this morning, tens of thousands of children face appalling dangers and threats in their daily lives, having been abandoned to the streets by their own parents, subjected to extraordinary abuse by so-called churches, persecuted by the police, manipulated by political parties, subjected to sexual violence or enslaved by armed groups. Every single one of those children is vulnerable—all of them. Those children who are not in school and the street children are vulnerable. For a society to put its next generation through so much shows just how much the fabric of Congolese society has been destroyed by war, conflict and misrule. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway made that point eloquently.

There is hope for all people in Congo through the political process. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley well in her further observation of the elections. She made the point that the world has witnessed in the DRC the first opportunity for a generation to use democracy to change people’s lives. Britain rightly played an important part in helping to fund those elections. In 11 days’ time, the second round of the presidential elections takes place. Several hon. Members made the point that there is a heavy responsibility on the two candidates to accept the results, whoever wins. The hon. Member for Richmond Park made that point forcefully this morning, and I made it to the candidates when I was in Kinshasa at the beginning of September. They must also reach out to others, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said, because if one candidate thinks that they can take all the power and exclude the rest of the people, there will be a risk of Congo returning to the war and violence that has destroyed the country. There is a long way to go, and I agree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness that the elections are the start of the process. It will be slow, painful and difficult, but at the heart of the issues that we have discussed today is the need for governance. What we have heard described this morning is the result of a failure of governance. That is the fundamental problem in the DRC, and for that reason the international community must stay there for a long time. That is why we have a large and growing programme, which was worth £5.6 million in 2001 and will be worth £62 million this year. We did not have a bilateral programme in the DRC 15 years ago. It was not part of Anglophone Africa, but we are there now because the country has its best chance of hope in a generation.

How are we contributing in order to improve the lives of street children? The British embassy is supporting a Congolese NGO to reunite street children with their families in Kinshasa and to educate parents against abandoning their children in the first place. Our HIV programme focuses on orphans and vulnerable children. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), we are already discussing with the World Bank a major education programme to reduce school fees in the DRC. With the World Bank, we will ensure that the programme addresses the needs of the most vulnerable, including street children, because removing school fees is probably the most important step that we can take to give children, and their parents if they have them, the chance to get into education. Street children will not get the education that they deserve unless there is a reduction in fees.

Jeremy Corbyn: I welcome what the Secretary of State says. Is there any chance that we could also provide resources for teacher training? The quality of teachers, particularly in private schools, leaves a lot to be desired, and teacher training is essential.

Hilary Benn: We will consider what we can do within the programme. I am about to describe what else we are trying to do, and other donors have responsibilities. It is important that we work together to ensure that all needs, including that which my hon. Friend raises, are covered.

We have given funding to train and equip the police to oversee the elections, and training includes the appropriate treatment of children. However, we have heard this morning that parts of the police force have no idea how to behave properly towards children, and changing their approach will be a long process.

We are also funding training for magistrates and police officers on children’s rights and the treatment of children in the justice system. The hon. Member for Gainsborough referred to that forcefully, and I shall ask my team to consider further whether we can do something in response to his specific suggestions. We have provided significant funding for the demobilisation and reintegration programme, and we have given £3 million to the Red Cross for its humanitarian appeal, which includes reintegration programmes for children.

We are working with NGOs in eastern DRC on a programme to reintegrate and protect refugees. However, the process is long, hard and far from complete. It is complicated, delicate and it is not working for everyone. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness made that point. With the World Bank and NGOs, we are trying to ensure that international and national organisations with the expertise get the support that they need. We are working with the DRC Government to ensure that children are properly provided for in continuing demobilisation plans. I shall ask my team to consider the point about CONADER, and to respond to the hon. Gentleman.

Mary Creagh: I am delighted to hear about the Government’s investment, but I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that one of the most distressing parts of the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) and the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) was the description of children who had suffered severe physical abuse, including an account of boys who had had their penises cut off. Those children need specialised medical attention. Is there any way that we can provide such help, alongside training and equipment, for Congo?

Hilary Benn: The example that my hon. Friend provides is extremely distressing. She and I have discussed it before, and it is the most extreme and unbelievable form of child abuse. Other donors and NGOs that specialise in human rights and issues affecting children have a part to play. UNICEF, for example, is helping the DRC Government to implement the UN convention on the rights of the child. NGOs, several of which have been mentioned in the debate, undertake vital work to help children. The hon. Member for Richmond Park made an important point about the sexual exploitation of boys, which people do not talk about.

There has been debate in some quarters about whether we should make parts of our aid programme conditional on progress. It has been acknowledged, however, that we give very little aid through the DRC Government. We must ensure that we adopt the right approach, because if we were to remove aid because of DRC Government failings and a lack of governance, we would not help the people about whom we are concerned.

The real issue, which has come across forcefully in all the speeches, is that the primary responsibility for addressing the problem must rest with the DRC Government and people. It is about political structures that work and that are accountable—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North made. We need a society in which the DRC Government start to take responsibility for the most vulnerable citizens. There is no want of legislation in the DRC.

The point has been made that much legislation is in place, and that includes the UN convention on the rights of the child, which was ratified in 1990—16 years ago. However, there is no action to do something about it and enforce it, which is in part a question of capacity. The graphic description from the hon. Member for Gainsborough of the permanent secretary’s office, with nothing in it apart from his own skill, makes the point. There is a lack of resources and of will, but there is corruption.

I assure hon. Members that we will keep up the political pressure on the Congolese Government in every way we can. We are in contact with President Kabila’s ambassador for children and the Ministry of Social Affairs, and I shall consider the point that the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness raised about the place of children in the poverty reduction strategy paper.

We have heard that children being abused in the name of exorcism is not a part of the Congolese tradition but a result of the dislocation of that society. As part of our presidency of the EU last year, we pushed for the Congolese authorities to do something about it, but no one has been prosecuted. The law and evidence exists, but the law must be enforced. The Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Metropolitan police are also putting in place measures to prevent Congolese pastors who abuse children from coming to Britain from the DRC. That is one thing that we can do. I urge all hon. Members present and the organisations listening to the debate to provide us with the evidence. If they give us the evidence, including any evidence of politicians who have engaged in such activity, we can take action.

I am grateful to hon. Members and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway for raising the issue. We have heard just how important what happens in the DRC is, above all to the people who live there, and just how important good governance is to solving those problems. I assure the Chamber that we will continue to support the people of Congo—and the politicians, if they rise to their responsibility—to try to make a difference for them, and for the children in particular. They have suffered much too much for far too long.

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