He looked no older than 12 years old. He was sitting on the floor of the veranda of the Ethiopian National Theatre with other street kids. He walked over to me and my friend and started following us. He asked us for money, rubbing his belly to signal he was hungry. We offered to buy him food but he was not so enthusiastic about it. He would rather plead for money. In the meantime, he sipped on a plastic bottle tucked inside his sweatshirt and took huffs. My friend and I understood that he was sniffing glue, an industrial drying adhesive. In that area, it is common to see kids abusing solvent that is meant for shoe repair and upholstery.

All the same, we insisted on our offer of buying him food. There was a trader selling sambusa (a stuffed triangular pastry) on the side corner. We offered to buy one for the street kid. He was adamant in his refusal, saying he preferred the money. The trader selling the sambusa told us not to bother, since the street boys were all intoxicated with glue there.

A frank conversation ensued, the street kid eventually telling us with a twinkle in his eye he indeed wanted the money to buy a tube of glue. He showed us the remnant in the plastic bottle. “Look, it is over. I need to buy another one.”

He told us that his name was Bereket and he had come from the southern region. He had no father and mother, ending up in the streets of Addis Ababa. I sensed the struggle he was having to get the words out. He spoke in a slow manner and only gave brief and terse replies. He was impatient to grab the money and go. His hands and head were shaking. They say glue addicts often behave like that.

Glue sniffing on the increase

Like Bereket, there are many streets children and youth in Addis Ababa who are hooked on the habit of sniffing glue. In busy intersections and areas like the Ethiopian National Theatre, Ambassador Cinema, Estifnaos Church, Stadium, Mexico Square, Piassa, Mercato and several other streets of the city, sniffing glue for its hallucinogenic effects has become very prevalent. More and more children and youth are seen doing it. The vast majority of them are between the ages of 10-20. There are also a few girls, I gathered.

They beg from passers-by, or shine shoes in return for the small sums of money they need to buy a tube of glue. Some rely on stealing. Life for them revolve around begging alms to get the glue to get high. They haul into traffic to tap on the windows of trapped cars, who see them as a nuisance.

Most of the street kids explain their use as an attempt to ward off incessant hunger pangs and cold. Sileshi is one of them. “When I sniff glue, I don’t feel hungry,” he said. He started sniffing consistently a couple of years ago. Every day, he prayed he would get enough money to buy the glue. When he doesn’t get enough, he would borrow the fix from his friends. And when he has luck with alms, it would be his turn to share the product with others. “We are close to each other and there is complicity between us,” he said.

After sniffing the glue, when they are high, they would be in a different world, they would be transported into foreign realm, they say. They were not scared of a police beating. They don’t feel the coldness of the stone floor and concrete in which they spend the night nor the damp air of the night.

The problem is not limited to Addis Ababa; it has become much more widespread in recent years outside of the capital. I have seen many glue abusers in Dire Dawa, Harar and Jigjiga in my recent trips there.

One place where one could easily see young people getting high on glue in Harar city is the Harar Municipality. Breathing in fumes from plastic bags is a daily ritual for these boys who surround the Municipality building. In the area called Muz Tera and Shewa Ber there are also gangs there.

Henok has been on Harar streets and hooked on the stuff since he arrived two years ago, he says. He left his parents who were unable to make ends meet in their farming village and came there looking for a job. He couldn’t find employment. The street kids in town received him with open arms. He started begging and picked up the glue habit.  “I live by begging. I buy glue from the alms.” he said.

An even more desperate groups of kids roamed in groups, and made the street their home. Severe poverty, a rising cost of living and unemployment are causing children to end up living on the streets, experts say. Most of them fall to glue sniffing habits because it is cheaper than other alternatives.

Authorities are well aware of the issue with glue-sniffing children and youth but lack of initiative for change and little impetus on the ground to solve the issue ensure the cycle of supply and demand remains unbroken. To be fair, there are many attempts of job-creation schemes for informal street vendors in Addis Ababa and many other towns. But street children and young people aren’t included. They are just left to fend for themselves. Drugs that make their life bearable also makes their life short. The habitual users are prone to mental and physical health issues, such as pneumonia.

In order to save a generation of children in Ethiopia, an increase in awareness and prevention programmes is necessary from either the government or NGOs. A detoxification and rehabilitation programme needs to be established. Without such help, we can only imagine how many more young children will be lost to drug abuse and crime in the future in Ethiopia.

Long-term solutions, experts say, would require the provision of jobs, affordable housing, and facilities for sport and recreation in addition to education through flexible schooling. “The government also needs to start focusing on redistribution of wealth rather than just rapid economic growth. Urban housing policies should ensure poor families have access to decent shelter. There should also be social security schemes to assist, especially households whose members are unemployed because of disability,” wrote Tatek Abebe, Associate Professor in Childhood Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who extensively has studied the issue of street children in Addis Ababa.

Article translated from Amharic into English by Arefaynie Fantahun and edited by Janet Lee.

Main Image: Addis street kid sniffing on glue, photo by Lukas Steiner 

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