Living on leftovers: Abuse and poverty driving children to Uganda’s streets

Many of these children claim to suffer even more at the hands of the police.

After five years of homelessness, John is an expert at making his bed: he lays a piece of cardboard on a stretch of cement, wraps a large bag around himself and attempts to sleep. The bags he relies on for warmth – which are plastic, or the types used for rice and sugar – are collected from dustbins in Mbale, a town in eastern Uganda. If he’s lucky, a kindly market trader might donate one.