As more and more Somalis shun cash for mobile money transfers for their daily purchases, Baidoa’s poor shoe-shine boys say they often end up polishing well off people’s shoes for nothing.
One US dollar is equivalent to around 22,000 Somali shillings – and the only denomination in circulation is the 1,000 shilling note.
It is quite normal for a customer to pay for a cup of tea by sending money to the teashop owner’s mobile phone.
But the town’s shoe shine boys, some of whom are as young as eight, usually cannot afford a phone. And if they do have access to one, most do not know how to use it.
Hussein Maalim Mohamed, aged eight, said he has been bullied by some of his customers.
“They usually ask me for my number,” he told Radio Ergo’s local reporter. “When I tell them I don’t have a phone or a number, they leave without paying me!”
Hussein said he had been threatened and beaten when he followed customers demanding to be paid in cash.
“Recently I bought a small Nokia phone but it was stolen from me by gangs. So now I don’t have a phone and some of my customers just leave without paying me when I tell them I don’t have one. My highest earning in a day has been 50,000 shillings and I take it to my mother. Some of the customers leave without paying saying they don’t have notes in their pocket and the only way they could pay is by mobile,” Hussein said.
It costs just 2-3,000 Somali shillings to get your shoes shined in Baidoa. The boys doing this work in the streets come from impoverished families. As children, they are often bread-winners for the rest of the family.
Saleban Yussuf Sharif, 12, has been shining shoes in Baidoa for three years. He takes his earnings home to feed his mother and three siblings. He has had to gain a basic understanding of how to use the mobile money system.
“Every morning I take my mother’s mobile phone so that customers can use it to make a payment. When I complete shining their shoes, I wait for a text message to come in. I only listen to the beep from my phone to make sure that I received payment from a customer because I don’t know how to check my balance. I give my customers a number written on a piece of paper to send the money to. During the night when I am back in my home, I give the phone back to my mother and she tells me about the balance – two or three dollars, whatever it is. My mother always tells me to keep the mobile phone safe so I often don’t take it out,” Saleban said.
There is some sympathy among customers for the plight of the shoe shine boys.
“We are aware of the shoe shiners’ plight. I pay them in Somali cash, 2,000 or 3,000 shillings, whatever it is,” said one customer, Abdirizak Ali Abdi. “This is a very little amount of money and it doesn’t need to be transferred to a mobile account. Those people who force these boys to use mobile phones should stop giving them a hard time, they shouldn’t harass poor innocent children!”
Hassan Maalim Yussuf, head of the Peace and Human Rights’ centre in Bay and Bakol regions, said he was aware of the abuse faced by shoe-shiners.
“They are poor children who are bread winners for their families. They shouldn’t be harassed. We are now working on a plan to help them by setting up a welfare office to monitor their problems and promote their rights,” he said.
