Jason Florio: Ghosts of the Civil Dead

Children of the Merkato

“I was working on a travel story in Ethiopia when I heard about the estimated 80,000 children living on the streets of Addis Ababa. Through a local NGO I was able to make contact with Bruke, a 15 year old boy, who like thousands of other street children had sought refuge underground, making his home in a small drainage hole in the middle of the road. The Merkato commercial center of Addis Ababa has become the de facto place for Ethiopian children escaping rural poverty, AIDS, abusive families, the clutches of indentured servitude and human trafficking. With no social welfare system and the lack of enforceable child rights in Ethiopia, the children find themselves, in essence, in a state of civil death – the legal status of a person who is alive but who has been deprived of the rights and privileges of a citizen or a member of society.” – Jason Florio

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