The plight of Samoa’s child street vendors and the multitude of challenges they face has been a talking point for many years.

Seeing them in front of Apia’s main supermarkets late in the evening– hoping to sell banana chips or packets of cotton buds or cups of cocoa Samoa amongst the various items – would immediately cause a stir for the first-time visitor. 

But for residents, these are children of families who are assisting their parents, trying to make ends meet in a tough world. Nonetheless, debate rages on whether today’s child street vendors are a manifestation of rising poverty levels, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Samoa.

In the Thursday 09 June 2022 edition of the Samoa Observer, the child street vendor issue, yet again, came to the fore with an article (Child vendors facing violence and harassment: survey) highlighting the findings of a survey by a National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) Team.

The survey’s findings is part of a report titled "Summary of Preliminary Findings from the Rapid Assessment Survey of Child Vendors in Samoa”. It was funded by UNICEF and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and is an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour.

The N.U.S. Team – led by Associate Professor Tuiloma Susana Tauaa and Dr. Mercy Maliko – interviewed 135 children who were child street vendors and their parents. The university’s researchers said the parents were included in the survey in order to know more about the realities of their children’s circumstances.

We appreciate the decision by the N.U.S. Team to include the children’s parents in the survey, as we think it is the only way to gain insights into the complexities of the families’ daily lives, while attempting to understand and record the dynamics at play at home when the parents task their children to go out and put on their street vendor hats to sell to the general public.

Unfortunately, the preliminary findings from the survey don’t make good reading, as it unveiled the cloak of secrecy surrounding the work of Samoa’s child street vendors and the risks and the crimes they risk facing on a daily basis.

According to the survey’s findings, many of the children surveyed revealed facing violence and harassment while on the job. They reported cases of fighting with other street vendors; harmed due to fighting between schools; getting reprimanded by adults; getting bitten by the neighbour’s dogs; being threatened by people [for money]; being insulted and bullied by older youth; getting robbed; getting sexually harrassed; and fears of getting hit by cars on busy roads.

However, as a newspaper, we are not surprised by the findings of the N.U.S. Team’s survey.

We’ve reported on offences committed against these groups of vulnerable Samoan children over the years – and the findings of the recent survey by the N.U.S. Team only confirms that the threats remain and are yet to be tackled – despite the subsequent change in the governing Administration following last year’s General Election.

The reference by the N.U.S. Associate Professor Tuiloma Susana Taua’a last Friday to the data from their survey “helping formulate policy interventions to fight child labour” is noted and very much appreciated.

But the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour should take it from here and work in tandem with the Ministry of Women Community and Social Development as child labour at most times comes down to poverty and should be seen through the lens of human rights and economic development.

We accept that the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (F.A.S.T.) Government is only 10–11 months old in office, but when is the right time to formulate long-term policy interventions to address this issue of child labour before an innocent life is lost?