Homelessness in the Maghreb: Gate to the unknown

Homelessness has been spreading significantly, and extending geographically to include countries in every continent in the world. Regardless of its causes, subjective and objective factors affecting it, and the fact that it’s a standard phenomenon that is hard to study practically, homelessness has many dramatic consequences on the social level, such as mendicancy, addiction, prostitution, etc. However, what interests us in this article is to address this phenomenon in the Arab Maghreb, and more precisely, to answer these questions: How can Maghreb countries prioritize aid policies to sustain homeless people in order to effectively solve their problem and ensure their social integration? Should the Maghreb countries give priority to the equal integration of children and the elderly?

Before answering these questions, we should bring to light the achievements of the legislative systems since the mid-twentieth century, such as developing and increasing the awareness of human, women and children rights, especially in terms of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that was approved by most countries worldwide, including – of course – the Arab Maghreb Union’s countries. If we move from the legislative level to the practical level of this Convention, however, we will inevitably meet a set of constraints, especially in the Arab Maghreb where most countries shelter many groups that endure exclusion, poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy, which are all factors that lead to the spread of homelessness.

As an answer to the two previously mentioned questions, I personally believe that in order to efficiently address the issue of homelessness, the Maghreb regimes need to fundamentally and seriously identify the characteristics of the social environment to which the families of the homeless belong, i.e. diagnosing their general conditions in order to facilitate providing aid to them. In my view, to be effective, this aid should be based on the following points:
1. Providing physical or material assistance by granting the needed food and clothes to the families of unable victims. This can be easily achieved if the state is actively engaged and not simply observing.
2. Providing medical and social assistance: It is necessary to ensure the involvement of psychologists and social experts to accurately diagnose the symptoms, and provide psychological guidance depending on the cases, privacy and demand.
3. Legal assistance: This consists of the activation of the personal status laws to resolve some of the problems leading to divorce and family disintegration, and handling them wisely.
4. Guidance: This is primarily achieved by the media, speeches given by Imams in the mosques, and the NGO activities, in order to spread health, economic and religious awareness for the benefit of the victims’ families and the communities at risk.

In order to increase the effectiveness of the above mentioned types of assistance, social and group shelters should be established in target neighborhoods, regardless of the complexity of the homelessness phenomenon that’s reflected in the diversity of the intellectual, social, psychological, and physical characteristics of homeless people, of all ages.
5. Maghreb regimes should also perform a coordination role, internally between the official bodies at the State level, and externally through inter-communication at the level of the Union’s States. As for the last aspect of the question, I think that the focus and priority in addressing homelessness should be directed towards the most vulnerable category to this phenomenon, which is represented by people aged between 30 to 60 years, according to some statistics in the Maghreb countries, due to the importance of this category and its vital role in building society. Care must also be given to the elderly over the age of 60, by dedicating special centers for them. These two categories are, in my opinion, different from the children’s category legally speaking, because all global laws recommend providing protection, education and health to minors in particular.

Finally, under the continuous crawl of homelessness in the Maghreb countries, and due to the lack of proper and firm handling of this issue, the homeless will remain lost before the gate leading to the unknown.

Zawaya