In the middle of a city park in central Tunis, Rania walks slowly, carrying her baby, who is crying loudly. Rania is just 13 years old and has an even younger looking face – she sits on the grass, in a quiet spot in the park, breastfeeding the baby, who seems exhausted and maybe even a little sick. It is 10:15pm but lights from nearby shops and cafes give this child enough light to take care of her child.

In the middle of a city park in central Tunis, Rania walks slowly, carrying her baby, who is crying loudly. Rania is just 13 years old and has an even younger looking face – she sits on the grass, in a quiet spot in the park, breastfeeding the baby, who seems exhausted and maybe even a little sick. It is 10:15pm but lights from nearby shops and cafes give this child enough light to take care of her child.

The place is very quiet, with only the sound of laughter from here and there and horns honked by passing cars. Other homeless children sit in the same park, not too far from Rania.

Rania tells how the other children here have been forced to leave their families for one desperate reason or another. Rania also tells her own story: Six years ago she was living on the streets, inside a drain with her sick mother, on the outskirts of the city. But then the drainage pipe was removed by local authorities and Rania and her mother’s life became harder and harder. Rania’s mother died and, on her own, begging and sleeping rough, Rania got to know other homeless children. Circumstances have made them a family, one with beggary and theft in common.

Children having children on Tunis’ streets

Rania’s baby is only seven months old and she says she got pregnant to one of her fellow homeless, when she was staying with a group of street children in a ruined building. She has been in touch with government agencies and she has been promised several times that she would be given shelter in a homeless persons’ village. But she is still waiting for this and now she is used to her style of life.

Rania’s story is typical. As the numbers of homeless children increase in Tunis, the authorities seem unable to come up with tangible plans to do anything about them.

Childhood issues are at the bottom of the agenda of the government and other political entities, complains Moez Cherif, a pediatrician and head of the Tunisian Association for the Defense of Children’s Rights. There is a lack of official statistics about street children, mostly due to a lack of monitoring by relevant authorities and the poor potential for child protection agencies to do anything.

Children are at the top of her Ministry’s agenda, Samira Merai Friaa, Tunisia’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, responds. Homelessness is an issue they want to tackle as is reducing the early drop out rate, she says – there are an estimated 100,000 children dropping out of school early every year.

Back in the park with Rania, there are three boys nearby. They look like they might be barely 15, smoking and swearing. When approached they refuse to talk to journalists, saying they didn’t want to give up any details about their lives.

The next morning in Barcelona Square, next to the train station, there are many hawkers, beggars and homeless people. At 10am the place is already crowded.

Underage and working for their families

Four young boys meet to distribute goods they will try and sell during the day: paper tissues and chewing gum. The eldest among them who wanted to be known only as Walid says that difficult conditions forced them to leave school and to help provide for their families by doing this work.

His family was poor, his father spent a lot of time in prison and his mother worked as a maid while his brother immigrated illegally to Europe.

He finished talking and his friends urged him to get going. After he finished selling the tissues, the boys would meet again at a nearby cafe – and the group split up with only one thing on their minds: their daily profits from selling the small things they carried with them.