During the last session of Parliament, some members called for the Ministry of Education to enforce compulsory education legislation. The reason? Far too many young people are spending their day peddling goods around Apia and other centres like Vaitele instead of being at school.

The education legislation (Education Act 2009) requires a school principal to “ensure that an attendance register is kept which records for every school day the attendance or absence of every student enrolled at the school … and that the [the student] must attend the school during the whole of each school day.” It also requires a student’s parents or carer to ensure that their child attends school and failure to do so is an offence.

We’ve had this child-street-vendor problem for the last 20-plus years, but how many principals have been hauled in by the Ministry of Education for not keeping a proper attendance record or parents/carers charged for not ensuring their children attend school? I guess none.

Suggestions like putting more resources into education and providing resources to support families of street vendors are too simplistic and unlikely to solve the problem because the problem runs much deeper than children skipping school to sell goods on the streets. Ask any street vendor whether they prefer peddling goods around town to being at school, and they will more than likely opt for the latter. It doesn’t mean that children selling goods outside school hours (and not late at night) is wrong if it helps the family, provided they are able to get home safely. It’s no difference from children serving customers in Ma and Pa shop after school and for some until late at night.

If I were a 10-year-old today, I’d probably be doing the same, not because my parents push me to do it, but because I would feel an obligation to help them out. Education, when I was growing up was not compulsory. To receive a western-type education was a privilege, and fortunately, my father who was a catechist, believed in education. To pay for that privilege, my sibling and I used to walk from village to village selling Samoan tobacco (fili tapa’a and Tipi) after school 2-3 days and the rest of the week helping our parents weed the tobacco and taro crops and prepare the evening meals.

Later years, to continue my education in town when my parents were posted to another village quite a distance from Apia, I went to live at Tanumapua, (Faumuinā Mata’afa’s cocoa plantation). Some Saturday mornings, I’d be sitting in front of Fong’s shop at Saleufi with a load of taros and bunches of bananas to sell for the family who managed the plantation. I wasn’t the only kid from Tanumapua peddling goods in town then. Others from a family who now owns a bank, supermarket and hardware chain of shops, and many other successful businesses, were selling vegetable (cabbages, beans, tomatoes) hotels like Aggie Grey and the Casino and businesses around town. And to get to school during the week, we would either catch a ride on the plantation truck if it was going to town or walk all the way to Mulivai and back. It was tough going but looking back now, it certainly helped developed in me and I’m sure my Tanumapua colleagues as well, a self-reliance ethos. Interestingly, on occasions when we do meet up by chance, we reminisce about those experiences.

Today, I believe that the large number of our child-street-vendors are not from poverty-stricken families – those with nothing to eat - but from families who cannot or are unable to say no to any of the competing financial demand placed on them by their sa’o (high chief), village, church, family fa’alavelave, as well as being susceptible to clinking and tinny sound of Vailima and Taula. And of course, the call by the fattest bandit of all, Miss Bingo. Such is the pressure on our today’s families that many have become dysfunctional leading to an upsurge in domestic violence and physical and psychological abuse of children. What child would not say yes to peddling goods on the street during school hours if saying no will lead to a beating?

An article in the Newsline newspaper in January 2020 papers headed, Street Vendor Dreams of Becoming A Lawyer, tells the story of Jay (surname withheld), a 13-year-old who had absconded from his family at Falealili because of the violence inflicted on him by his stepfather. He sought refuge at the Victim Support where he felt loved and was able to live a normal life making friends with children of his own age without fear of getting a regular beating. Says jay, “Life was really hard for me when I was living with my mother and her new husband. I would get a hiding all the time but especially when I don’t finish selling all the products that I had brought.” After a couple of years at the Victim Support shelter, Jay returned to his village to live with his biological father and back to school. His dream was to attend university, become a lawyer.

Every child-street vendor we see in town and elsewhere has a dream like Jay of getting a good education and become successful later. But those dream will remain a dream only if their parents or carers do not prioritise their children’s education instead catering first to their own excessive wants. Not needs, wants.

We can help our children realise their dreams, street vendor or not, by allowing them to grow up in a loving and violence-free environment. And remember, a child raised in a violent and abusive environment is never a free child. They will grow up scared, even taking on a survivor mentality, thinking up lies and excuses that they know will help them avoid the beating and the abuse. Others may even consider taking drastic action with their own lives to free themselves from it all if they believe that the abuse and beating is not going to stop.