Street child

Afghan street boy smiles for the camera in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan (June 2003).

A street child is a child who lives on the streets of a city, deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old.

Street children live in junk boxes, parks or on the street itself. A great deal has been written defining street children, but the primary difficulty is that there are no precise categories, but rather a continuum, ranging from children who spend some time in the streets and sleep in a house with ill-prepared adults, to those who live entirely in the streets and have no adult supervision or care.

A widely accepted set of definitions, commonly attributed to Amnesty International, divides street children into two main categories:

1. Children on the street are those engaged in some kind of economic activity ranging from begging to vending. Most go home at the end of the day and contribute their earnings to their family. They may be attending school and retain a sense of belonging to a family. Because of the economic fragility of the family, these children may eventually opt for a permanent life on the streets.
2. Children of the street actually live on the street (or outside of a normal family environment). Family ties may exist but are tenuous and are maintained only casually or occasionally.^[1]

Street children exist in many major cities, especially in developing countries, and may be subject to abuse, neglect, exploitation, or even, in extreme cases, murder by "cleanup squads" hired by local businesses or police.^[2]

In Latin America, and in parts of Asia, a common cause is abandonment by poor families unable to feed all their children. In Africa, an increasingly common cause is AIDS killing parents, or otherwise rendering them unable to care for their children.

In Western societies, such children tend to be termed "homeless children". According to the Sunnykids children's charity of Australia, homelessness in western societies tends to fall into three categories: Primary (rough sleeping, literally living on the streets); Secondary (moving from place to place, utilizing support such as staying with friends, living in a homeless shelter) and tertiary (Those known as "at risk" of homelessness, such as children that have a home which they are under significant risk of losing or may be unsafe in).

Definitions

Street child in Bangladesh

The question of how to define a street child has generated much discussion that is usefully summarized by Sarah Thomas de Benítez in, "The State of the World's Street Children: Violence."

‘Street children’ is increasingly recognized by sociologists and anthropologists to be a socially constructed category that in reality does not form a clearly defined, homogeneous population or phenomenon (Glauser, 1990; Ennew, 2000; Moura, 2002). ‘Street children’ covers children in such a wide variety of circumstances and characteristics that policy-makers and service providers find it difficult to describe and target them. Upon peeling away the ‘street children’ label, individual girls and boys of all ages are found living and working in public spaces, visible in the great majority of the world’s urban centres.^[3]

The definition of ‘street children’ is contested, but many practitioners and policymakers use UNICEF’s concept of boys and girls aged under 18 for whom ‘the street’ (including unoccupied dwellings and wasteland) has become home and/or their source of livelihood, and who are inadequately protected or supervised (Black, 1993).^[4]

Names

Street Children is a widely used term in the English language and has analogues in other languages such as French (les enfants des rues), Spanish (niños de la calle), Portuguese (meninos de rua), Swedish (gatubarn), Hungarian (utcagyerekek), Romanian (copiii străzii) and German (Straßenkinder). Street kids is also commonly employed although it is sometimes considered pejorative.^[5] In other languages children who live and/or work in the streets are known by many names. Some examples are listed below:^[6]

• "huelepegas" (glue sniffers) in Nicaragua
• "chemos" (glue sniffers) in Mexico
• "gamín" (from French gamin, kid)
• "chinches" (bed bugs) in Colombia
• "pivetes" (little criminals/marginals) in Rio de Janeiro
• "pájaro frutero" (fruit bird) and "pirañitas" (little piranhas) in Peru
• "polillas" (moths) in Bolivia
• "resistoleros" (glue sniffers; Resistol is a major brand) in Honduras
• "scugnizzi" (spinning tops) in Naples
• "беспризорники" - besprizorniki (the unsupervised) in Russia
• "batang lansangan"/"batang kalye" (street child), "palaboy" (waif or vagrant, also a general term applied to homeless people), or "rugby boys" (glue sniffers; Rugby is a brand of wood glue)^[7] in the Philippines
• "Bụi Đời" (the dust of life) in Vietnam
• "saligoma" (dirty kid, from French sale gamin) in Rwanda
• "poussins" (chicks), "moustiques" (mosquitos) in Cameroon
• "balados" (wanderers) in the democratic Republic of the Congo and the Congo Republic.

The term Street Arab came to the fore in the mid-19th century, first appearing in 1848, according to the OED.^[8] Horatio Alger's book Tattered Tom ; or, The Story of a Street Arab (1871) is an early example; it is about a homeless girl who lives by her wits on the streets of New York. Charles Dickens likewise propagated its early use in 1855, if in a more clearly derogatory sense, when he declared "a wretched, ragged, untaught street Arab boy is ugly."^[9] In 1890, Danish-American journalist Jacob Riis described street children in New York in an essay titled "The Street Arab".^[10] The Victorian association of street children with Arabs is probably reflected in the nomadic tradition of the Bedouin; the 19th century notion that non-Europeans from less civilized cultures were like children; of European and American travelers who saw many "street children" in Arab countries during the period; and a xenophobic tendency to scapegoat social problems.^[8] The term has fallen out of favor.^[8]

Numbers and Distribution

Numbers

Estimates vary but one often cited figure is that the number of children living independently in the streets totals between 150 million and 200 million worldwide.^{[citation needed]}

According to a report from the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom-based consortium of related NGOs:

Estimating numbers of ‘street children’ is fraught with difficulties. In 1989, UNICEF estimated 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. 14 years later UNICEF reported: ‘The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million’ (UNICEF, 2002: 37). And even more recently: ‘The exact number of street children is impossible to quantify, but the figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions across the world. It is likely that the numbers are increasing’ (UNICEF, 2005: 40-41). The 100 million figure is still commonly cited, but has no basis in fact (see Ennew and Milne, 1989; Hecht, 1998; Green, 1998). Similarly, it is debatable whether numbers of street children are growing globally or whether it is the awareness of street children within societies which has grown.^[11]

Distribution

Street children may be found on every inhabited continent in a large majority of the world's cities. The following estimates indicate the global extent of street child populations.

• India 11 million^[12]
• China 150,000^[13]
• Egypt 1.5 million^[14]
• Pakistan 1.5 million
• Kenya 250,000 - 300,000^[15]
• Philippines 250,000^[16]
• Congo 250,000
• Morocco 30,000^[17]
• Brazil 25,000^[18]
• Germany 20,000^[19]
• Honduras 20,000
• Jamaica 6,500^[20][21]
• Mongolia 4,000^[22]
• Uruguay 3,000^[23]

History

Children sleeping in Mulberry Street - Jacob Riis photo New York, United States of America (1890)

Children making their home/livelihoods on the street is not a new or modern phenomenon. In the introduction to his history of abandoned children in Soviet Russia 1918 -1930, Alan Ball states:

Orphaned and abandoned children have been a source of misery from earliest times. They apparently accounted for most of the boy prostitutes in Augustan Rome and, a few centuries later, moved a church council of 442 in southern Gaul to declare: “Concerning abandoned children: there is general complaint that they are nowadays exposed more to dogs than to kindness.”^[24] In Tsarist Russia, seventeenth-century sources described destitute youths roaming the streets, and the phenomenon survived every attempt at eradication thereafter. Long before the Russian Revolution, the term besprizornye had gained wide currency.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]}

In 1848 Lord Ashley referred to more than 30,000 'naked, filthy, roaming lawless and deserted children', in and around London.^[34]

By 1922 there were at least 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War.^[35] Abandoned children formed gangs, created their own argot, and engaged in petty theft and prostitution.^[36]

Causes

Children may end up on the streets for several basic reasons: They may have no choice – they are abandoned, orphaned, or disowned by their parents. Secondly, they may choose to live in the streets because of mistreatment or neglect or because their homes do not or cannot provide them with basic necessities. Many children also work in the streets because their earnings are needed by their families. But homes and families are part of the larger society and the underlying reasons for the poverty or breakdown of homes and families may be social, economic, political or environmental or any combination of these.

In a 1993 report, WHO offered the following list of causes for the phenomenon:^[6]

• family breakdown
• armed conflict
• poverty
• natural and man-made disasters
• famine
• physical and sexual abuse
• exploitation by adults
• dislocation through migration
• urbanization and overcrowding
• acculturation
• disinheritance or being disowned

The orphaning of children as a result of HIV/AIDS is another cause that might be added to this list.^[37][38]

By country

Russia

In Russia, street children usually find a home in underground pipe and cable collectors during the harsh winter. These underground homes offer space, shelter and most importantly of all, heat from hot water and central heating pipes.

Russia has 1 million street children,^[39] and one in four crimes involves underage youths. Officially, the number of children without supervision is more than 700,000. However, experts believe the real figure has long been between 2 and 4 million.^[40]

China

The number of China's urban street children is growing. Based on the number of children passing through protection centres, the Ministry of Civil Affairs estimates that there are around 150,000. Many come from migrant families; others migrate to urban areas by themselves to escape the harsh conditions they face in rural areas. They are vulnerable to risks on the street and many resort to crime.

The traditional approach to managing street children has been to pick them up, detain them for a while, and then send them back to their families. But many have left home because of family problems and are unwilling to return, or their families are unable to care for them. As a result, they soon go back to the street. ^[41]

India

Two street children in Chennai, India

India is home to the world’s largest population of street children, estimated at 18 million.^[42] The Republic of India is the seventh largest and second most populous country in the world. With acceleration in economic growth, India has become one of the fastest growing developing countries. This has created a rift between poor and rich; 22 percent of the population lives below the income poverty line. Owing to unemployment, increasing rural-urban migration, attraction of city life and a lack of political will, India now has one of the largest number of child laborers in the world.

Street children are subject to malnutrition, hunger, health problems, substance abuse, theft, commercial sexual exploitation, harassment by the city police and railway authorities, as well as physical and sexual abuse, although the Government of India has taken some corrective measures and declared child labor illegal.

Vietnam

According to data by the Street Educators’ Club, the number of street children in Vietnam has shrunk from 21,000 in 2003 to 8,000 in 2007. The number dropped from 1,507 to 113 in Hanoi and from 8,507 to 794 in Ho Chi Minh City. In the meantime the number of migrant children is increasing. This number is, however, unconfirmed owing to varying definitions of street children. Some experts mention several different categories of street children in Vietnam: "children who have run away from home or who have no home, and who sleep on the street; children who sleep on the street with their family or guardian; children who have a family or guardian and who usually sleep at home, but work on the streets; economic migrants who rent rooms with other working children; and bonded laborers".^[43]

There are almost 400 humanitarian organisations and international non-governmental organizations providing help for about 15,000 children, who live in especially difficult conditions.^[44]

Pakistan

The number of street children in Pakistan is estimated to be anywhere between 1.2 million^[45][46] to 1.5 million, making it a host to one of the world's largest street children populations behind countries such as India and Egypt. There is a wide gap in standards of living between the upper class and the less privileged, giving rise to a large segment of the population (and subsequently, young children) living in poverty. Street children in Pakistan are subject to a number of social issues, including homelessness, malnutrition, domestic physical and mental abuse, forced labour, beggary, coercion into drugs and marginalisation from mainstream society. Most are found alongside slums and roads of the country's major urban centres. Due to poverty, many of them are driven into finding work such as recycling, polishing shoes, washing cars or selling roadside foods and cheap items, in order to make a living.^[47] There have been efforts in the past by UNICEF and some NGOs to assist the plight of the needy children through various programs and by opening rehabilitation centers;^[48] however, the situation still remains, at large, one of the biggest socio-economic problems in Pakistan today.

Bucharest, Romania

A report of the Council of Europe of year 2000 estimated that there were approximately 1,000 street children in Bucharest, Romania.

Some Romanian street children are preyed on by sex tourists, mainly from Western Europe, and many can be seen inhaling aurolac (an aluminium-based paint traditionally used for painting a type of wood-burning stove) from plastic bags, the substance of choice for those of limited means.

Romania has made much progress, allowing the number of street children drop to low levels, which is lying at or below the European average. Given that socio-economic conditions continue to improve in Romania, the number of street children is expected to diminish.^[49]

Brazil

The Brazilian Government estimates that children and adolescents who work or sleep on the streets of the country are around 23,973, considering 75 Brazilian cities with more than 300 thousand inhabitants. And 63% ended up there because of domestic violence. The results were obtained from the national census mandated by the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency (SDH) and the Institute for Sustainable Development (Idesp).^[50]

The Philippines

Main article: Street children in the Philippines

According to the 1998 report, entitled "Situation of the Youth in the Philippines," there are about 1.5 million street children in the Philippines.^[51]

75% of street children in the Philippines spend the night in the homes of their families, but spend the rest of the day working in the street. Between 25%-30% of street children often create a sort of family among fellow street children, and some of them may maintain an interrupted relationship with their families and the homes of their families. 5%-10% of street children are completely abandoned.^{[52] [53]}

Street Children as young as 10 years old are often imprisoned under the Vagrancy Act, sometimes in cells which include adults, resulting in recurrent physical and sexual abuse, sometimes by guards as well.^[54]

Many street children were in danger of summary execution during the Marcos Government.^[55] Human rights groups said the killings have become an unwritten government policy to deal with the street children phenomenon, and that they are openly endorsed by local officials, strengthening the long-running suspicion that the death squads were formed by the government.^[56]

Ethiopia

According to the Bible society, an estimated 600,000 children live on the streets of Addis Ababa.^{[citation needed]}

Government and non-government responses

Responses by governments

Because they have not reached the age of majority, street children have no representation in the governing process. They have no vote themselves nor by proxy through their parents, from whom they likely are alienated. Nor do street children have any economic leverage. Governments, consequently, may pay little attention to them.

The rights of street children are often ignored by governments even though nearly all of the world's governments^[57] have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.^[58] Governments are often embarrassed by street children and may blame parents or neighboring countries.^[59][60] Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) may also be blamed for encouraging children to live in the streets by making street life more bearable or attractive through the services they provide.^[61]

When governments implement programs to deal with street children these generally involve placing the children in orphanages, juvenile homes or correctional institutes.^[62][63] However, some children are in the streets because they have fled from such institutions^{[64][65][66][67]} and some governments prefer to support or work in partnership with NGO programs.^[68] Governments sometimes institute roundups when they remove all the children from city streets and deposit them elsewhere or incarcerate them.^[69][70][71]

In the most extreme cases, governments may tacitly accept or participate in social cleansing operations that murder street children.^[72][73][74]

NGO responses

Non-government organizations employ a wide variety of strategies to address the needs and rights of street children. These may be categorized as follows:

• Advocacy - through media and government contacts agencies may press for the rights of street children to be respected.
• Preventive - programs that work to prevent children from taking to the streets, through family and community support and education.

• Institutional
  • residential rehabilitation programs - some agencies provide an environment isolated from the streets where activities are focussed on assisting children to recover from drug, physical or sexual abuse.
  • full-care residential homes - the final stage in many agencies' programs is when the child is no longer in the streets but lives completely in an environment provided by the agency. Some agencies promote fostering children to individual families. Others set up group homes where a small number of children live together with houseparents employed by the agency. Others set up institutional care centers catering to large numbers of children. Some agencies include a follow-up program that monitors and counsels children and families after the child has left the residential program.

• Street-based programs - these work to alleviate the worst aspects of street life for children by providing services to them in the streets. These programs tend to be less expensive and serve a larger number of street children than institutional programs since the children still must provide for themselves in the streets.
  • feeding program
  • medical services
  • legal assistance
  • street education
  • financial services (banking and entrepreneur programs)
  • family reunification
  • drop-in centres/night shelters
  • outreach programs designed to bring the children into closer contact with the agency
• Conscientization - change street children's attitudes to their circumstances - view themselves as an oppressed minority and become protagonists rather than passive recipients of aid.^[75][76]

Many agencies employ several of these strategies and a child will pass through a number of stages before he or she "graduates". First he/she will be contacted by an outreach program, then may become involved in drop-in center programs, though still living in the streets. Later the child may be accepted into a halfway house and finally into residential care where he or she becomes fully divorced from street life.^[77][78]

In popular fiction

Examples from popular fiction include Kipling's “Kim” as a street child in colonial India, and Gavroche in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Fagin's crew of child pickpockets in "Oliver Twist" as well as Sherlock Holmes's "Baker Street Irregulars" attest to the presence of street children in 19th-century London.

A recent award winning film is Slumdog Millionaire, in which one "slumdog" or street kid from Mumbai, makes his way through life to become a millionaire and finds his long-time love after a series of mishaps.

See also

• Benposta
• Casa Alianza
• Covenant House
• Friends International
• Homelessness
• Kotjebi
• Orphan
• Relational care
• Runaway youth
• Street children in the Philippines
• Waif

References

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52. ^ Teachers' Corner - Background(Detail)^{[dead link]}
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54. ^ [2]^{[dead link]}
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External links

• Street Children in Gimbi, Ethiopia, including documentary of a specific boy
• Street Angels UK: Community, security and development for the people of Salvador, Brazil
• Streetconnect.org: A clearing house of information for and about homeless youth
• Hummingbird: a documentary about two NGOs in Brazil that work with street kids
• The Goodman Project: A foundation set up to help the street kids in India and Asia
• Street Children: Article on the Children's Rights Portal