Street children

Street children is a term for children experiencing homelessness who live on the streets of a city. Homeless youth are often called street kids and street youth; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policymakers use UNICEF’s concept of boys and girls, aged under eighteen years, 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.^[1]

Female street children are sometimes called gamines,^[2][3][4][5] a term that is also used for Colombian street children of either gender.^[6][7][8]

Some street children, notably in more developed nations, are part of a subcategory called thrownaway children who are children that have been forced to leave home. Thrownaway children are more likely to come from single-parent homes.^[9] Street children are often subject to abuse, neglect, exploitation, or, in extreme cases, murder by "clean-up squads" that have been hired by local businesses or police.^[10] In Western societies, such children are sometimes treated as homeless children rather than criminals or beggars.

Definitions

Street children is used as a catch-all term, but covers children in a wide variety of circumstances and with a wide variety of characteristics. Policymakers and service providers struggle to describe and assist such a sub-population. Individual girls and boys of all ages are found living and working in public spaces, and are visible in the great majority of the world’s urban centers.^[11]

Statistics and distribution

Street children can be found in a large majority of the world's cities, with the phenomenon more prevalent in densely populated urban hubs of developing or economically unstable regions, such as countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia.^[16]

According to a report from the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom-based consortium of related non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UNICEF estimated that 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. Fourteen years later, in 2002, UNICEF similarly reported, "The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million". More recently the organization added, "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."^[11] The 100 million figure is still commonly cited for street children, but has no basis in fact.^[17][18][19] Similarly, it is debatable whether numbers of street children are growing globally, or whether it is the awareness of street children within societies that has grown.^[11]

History

The phenomenon of street children has been documented as far back as 1848. Alan Ball, in the introduction to his book on the history of abandoned children, And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930, 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."^[20] In Tsarist Russia, seventeenth-century sources described destitute youths roaming the streets, and the phenomenon survived every attempt at eradication thereafter. ^[21]

In 1848, Lord Ashley referred to more than 30,000 "naked, filthy, roaming lawless and deserted children" in and around London, UK.^[22] By 1922 there were at least seven million homeless children in Russia due to the devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War.^[23] Abandoned children formed gangs, created their own argot, and engaged in petty theft and prostitution.^[24]

Causes

The causes of this phenomenon are varied, but are often related to domestic, economic, or social disruption; including, but not limited to, poverty, breakdown of homes and/or families, political unrest, acculturation, sexual, physical or emotional abuse, domestic violence, lured away by pimps or internet predators, mental health problems, substance abuse, and sexual orientation or gender identity issues.^[25] Children may end up on the streets due to cultural factors. For example, some children in parts of Congo and Uganda are made to leave their family because they are suspected to be witches who bring bad luck upon their family. In Afghanistan, young girls who perform "honour crimes" that shame their family and/or cultural practices—like adultery (which may include rape or sexual abuse) or who refuse an arranged marriage—may be forced to leave their homes.^[26] Children may also end up on the streets due to religious factors. For example, some children in the far Northern parts of Nigeria (refer to as the almajiris) are forced to leave their homes by indenturing under a mallam (Islamic religious teacher) in order to understand the teachings of the Holy Quran. During the period of indenture, these children are forced to the streets in search for their daily livelihoods through alms begging. These children are also in most circumstances compelled to make returns from their daily proceeds to the mallam and failure to do so means severe punishment.^[27]

By country

Africa

Egypt

It might be hard to tell how many children are living on the street in Egypt, but one thing is clear—the numbers are very large and almost certainly growing. With the difficulty of quantifying the phenomenon, NGOs estimate that at least tens of thousands of street children in the country, most of them in the cities of Cairo and Alexandria.

These children lead an unhealthy and often dangerous life that leaves them deprived of their basic needs for protection, guidance, and supervision and exposes them to different forms of exploitation and abuse. For many, survival on the street means begging and sexual exploitation by adults.

World Health Organization studies show that street children suffer from health problems ranging from cholera to tuberculosis and anemia, and that they are exposed to a variety of toxic substances, both in their food and in the environment around them. They are also at risk of various kinds of abuse. In a survey in 2000, 86 percent of street children identified violence as a major problem in their life. In another survey, 50 percent stated that they had been exposed in some manner to rape.

UNICEF is working with NGOs such as Hope Village Society, CARITAS and the Egyptian Association for the Protection of Children in Alexandria and Qena to improve the lives of street children and to educate and empower individual boys and girls. The project is being implemented through reception centers targeting street children.

The centres, set up to deal specifically with the problems faced by street children, provide them with meals and the space to rest or engage in recreational activities.

UNICEF supports the centres by training social workers on the rights of children and the risks that the children face on the street, and also by providing training directly to the children themselves through the social workers. The centres also provide health services ranging from check-ups to hospital referrals.

A number of the children at the centres are trained to act as "mentors" to other children living on the street. The children are trained to understand and deal with the potential health threats of living on the street, and then pass this information on to their peers on the street.

© UNICEF Egypt "White Book" allows children to reflect on their lives and their future

In another initiative implemented by CARITAS and four other NGOs in Cairo and Alexandria, street children are encouraged to reflect on their lives and to express their thoughts and hopes about their future. The children do this in a creative, participatory manner by compiling pictures, drawings, poems and stories which are to be published in the "White Book of Our Future".

Supporting the work on the ground, and building on the National Strategy for the Protection and Rehabilitation of Street Children (launched in early 2003 under the auspices of the First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak), the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, supported by UNICEF, began developing a National Plan of Action for Street Children involving all concerned partners. Focus will be on children already living rough, ensuring that they receive access to the basic services they are deprived of. The rehabilitation and reintegration of street children back into society will be the focus, along with changes to the 1996 Child Law that will street children as victims and at-risk rather than as deviants and criminals, as is currently the case

Kenya

There are an estimated 250,000 street children in Kenya and over 60,000 in the capital Nairobi.^[28] Rapid and unsustainable urbanisation in the post-colonial period, which led to entrenched urban poverty in cities such as Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa is an underlying cause of child homelessness. Rural-urban migration broke up extended families which had previously acted as a support network, taking care of children in cases of abuse, neglect and abandonment.^[28]

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that glue sniffing is at the core of "street culture" in Nairobi, and that the majority of street children in the city are habitual solvent users.^[28] Research conducted by Cottrell-Boyce for the African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies found that glue sniffing amongst Kenyan street children was primarily functional – dulling the senses against the hardship of life on the street – but it also provided a link to the support structure of the ‘street family’ as a potent symbol of shared experience.^[28]

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone was considered to be the poorest nation in the world, according to the UN World Poverty Index 2008. Whilst the current picture is more optimistic – World Bank projections for 2013/14 ranked Sierra Leone as having the second fastest growing economy in the world – a prevalent lack of child rights and extreme poverty remain widespread. There are close to 50,000 children relying upon the streets for their survival, a portion of them living full-time on the streets.^[29] There are also an estimated 300,000 children in Sierra Leone without access to education.^[29] Often neglected rural areas – of which there are many – offer little or no opportunity for children to break from the existing cycle of poverty.

Asia

Bangladesh

No recent statistics of street children in Bangladesh is available. UNICEF puts the number above 670,000 referring to a study conducted by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, "Estimation of the Size of Street Children and their Projection for Major Urban Areas of Bangladesh, 2005". About 36% of these children are in the capital city Dhaka according to the same study. Though Bangladesh improved the Human Capital Index over the decades, (HDI is 0.558 according to 2014 HDR of UNDP and Bangladesh at 142 among 187 countries and territories), these children still represent the absolute lowest level in the social hierarchy. The same study projected the number of street children to be 1.14m in year 2014.^[30][31][32]

India

India has an estimated one million or more street children in each of the following cities: New Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.^[33] When considering India as a whole, there are over 11 million children who earn their living off the streets in cities and rural areas.^[34] It is more common for street children to be male and the average age is fourteen. Although adolescent girls are more protected by families than boys are, when girls do break the bonds they are often worse off than boys are, as they are lured into prostitution.^[35] The Republic of India is the seventh largest and second-most populated country in the world. Due to the acceleration in economic growth, an economic rift has appeared, with just over thirty-two per cent of the population living below the poverty line.^[36] Owing to unemployment, increasing rural-urban migration, the attraction of city life, and a lack of political will, India has developed one of the largest child labor forces in the world.

Indonesia

According to a 2007 study, there were over 170,000 street children living in Indonesia.^[37] In 2000, about 1,600 children were living on the streets of Yogyakarta. Approximately 500 of these children were girls from the ages of 4–16 years of age.^[38] Many children began living on the streets after the 1997 financial crisis in Indonesia. Girls living on the street face more difficulties than boys living on the street in Indonesia. Girls on the street are often abused by the street boys because of the patriarchal nature of the culture. "They abuse girls, refuse to acknowledge them as street children but liken them to prostitutes".^[38] Many girls become dependent on boyfriends; they receive material support in exchange for sex.

The street children in Indonesia are seen as a public nuisance. "They are detained, subjected to verbal and physical abuse, their means of livelihood (guitars for busking, goods for sale) confiscated, and some have been shot attempting to flee the police".^[38]

Pakistan

The number of street children in Pakistan is estimated to be between 1.2 million^[39][40] and 1.5 million, meaning that the country has one of the world's largest street children populations. Although, this number remains anecdotal since it was cited over 10 years ago. There has been no head-count or a mapping study of street children in Pakistan except in Karachi;,^[41] which were also limited to certain geographical areas. These studies show that the numbers maybe much higher now after the increasing poverty, people's displacement after the natural disasters and war on terrorism in Pakistan. It is estimated that there are over 118,000 boys living and/or working on streets just in Karachi.^[42] Past efforts have been initiated by UNICEF and other NGOs to assist children in need through various programs and rehabilitation centers;,^[43][44][45] however, the situation remains as a prominent socio-economic issue in Pakistan in the 21st century.

The Philippines

According to the 1998 report, "Situation of the Youth in the Philippines", there are about 1.5 million street children in the Philippines,^[46] 70% of which are boys. Street children as young as ten years old can be imprisoned alongside adults under the Vagrancy Act; in past cases, physical and sexual abuse have occurred as a result of this legislation.^[47]

Vietnam

According to 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.^[48] There are currently almost 400 humanitarian organizations and international non-governmental organizations providing help to about 15,000 Vietnamese children.^[49]

Europe

Greece

Greece’s street child activity is heavily connected with human trafficking, especially with immigrants from Albania.^[50] In 2003, street children located in state-run facilities had disappeared. The disappearance is suspected to be linked to human trafficking.^[50] The numbers have decreased in recent years and Greece has taken "legislative action to criminalize human trafficking and related crimes", though Amnesty International reports that the problem still exists and there is a failure of government protection and justice of trafficked children.^[50]

Begging and other street activities have been outlawed in Greece since 2003, but the recent unemployment hike has increased levels of these actions.^[50]

There are few programs for displaced children in Greece, which created a street child problem in the early 2000s. Giving foster parents to special needs children is not something the Greek government has done, leading to higher numbers of physically or mentally disabled street children.^[50] There are also deterrents for working and poor parents in Greece making them more willing to force their children to the streets. For example, orphans are given financial benefits, but if they live in state-run facilities they cannot receive these benefits. For working parents to get government subsidies, they often have to have more than one child.^[50]

Romania

In an effort to increase Romania's work force, former communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu outlawed contraception and abortion in 1966. Thousands of unwanted children were placed in state orphanages where they faced terrible conditions. With the fall of Communism, many children moved onto the streets. Some were from the orphanages, while others were runaways from impoverished families. Today there are 20,000 children living on the streets while the resources for sheltering these homeless youths are severely limited. A 2000 report from the Council of Europe estimated that there were approximately 1,000 street children in the city of Bucharest. The prevalence of street children has led to a burgeoning sex tourism business in Romania, although efforts have been made to decrease the number of street children in the country.^[51] The 2001 documentary film Children Underground documents the plight of Romanian street children, in particular their struggles with malnutrition, sexual exploitation, and substance abuse.

Russia

Russia has an estimated 1 million street children,^[52] and one in four crimes involves underage individuals. Officially, the number of children without supervision is more than 700,000. However, experts believe the real figure has since risen to between 2 and 4 million.^[53]

According to UNICEF there were 64,000 homeless street children brought to hospitals by various governmental services (e.g. police) in 2005. In 2008 the number was 60,000.^[54]

Overall number of Russian children that lost their parents' support by the end of 2011 was 654,355.^[55] This includes 522,802 kids being on fostergage or adopted, and 105,688 kids in orphanages.

Turkey

Of Turkey's 30,891 street children, 30,109 live in İstanbul, research conducted by the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Presidency (BİHB) has shown. Of the street children, 20 were identified in Ankara, and Turkey's third-largest city, İzmir, had none. Kocaeli province was reported to have 687 street children while Eskişehir has 47. The research also revealed that 41,000 children are forced to beg on the streets, more than half of whom are found in İstanbul. Other cities with high figures include Ankara (6,700), Diyarbakır (3,300), Mersin (637) and Van (640).

Based on unofficial estimates, 88,000 children in Turkey live on the streets, and the country has the fourth-highest rate of underage substance abuse in the world. 4 percent of all children in Turkey are subject to sexual abuse, with 70 percent of the victims being younger than 10. Contrary to popular belief, boys are subject to sexual abuse as frequently as girls. In reported cases of children subject to commercial sexual exploitation, 77 percent of the children came from broken homes. Twenty-three percent lived with their parents, but in those homes domestic violence was common. The biggest risk faced by children who run away and live on the street is sexual exploitation. Children kidnapped from southeastern provinces are forced into prostitution here. Today, it is impossible to say for certain how many children in Turkey are being subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, but many say official information is off by at least 85 percent.^[56]

Latin America

According to some estimates made in 1982 by UNICEF, there were forty million street children in Latin America,^[57] most of whom work on the streets, but they do not necessarily live on the streets . A majority of the street children in Latin America are males between the ages of 10 and 14. There are two categories of street children in Latin America: home-based and street-based. Home-based children have homes and families to return to, while street-based children do not. A majority of street children in Latin America are home-based.^[58]

Brazil

The Brazilian government estimates that the number of children and adolescents in 2012 who work or sleep on the streets were approximately 23,973,^[59] based on results from the national census mandated by the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency (SDH) and the Institute for Sustainable Development (Idesp).^[60]

North America

United States

The number of homeless children in the US grew from 1.2 million in 2007 to 1.6 million in 2010. The United States defines homelessness per McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.^[61] The number of homeless children reached record highs in 2011,^[13] 2012,^[14] and 2013^[15] at about three times their number in 1983.^[14] An "estimated two million [youth] run away from or are forced out of their homes each year" in the United States.^[25] The difference in these numbers can be attributed to the temporary nature of street children in the United States, unlike the more permanent state in developing countries.

Street children in the United States tend to stay in the state, 83% do not leave their state of origin.^[62] If they leave, street children are likely to end up in large cities, notably New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco.^[63] Street children are predominantly Caucasian and female in the United States, and 42% identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).^[64]

The United States government has been making efforts since the late 1970s to accommodate this section of the population. The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 1978 made funding available for shelters and funded the National Runaway Switchboard. Other efforts include the Child Abuse and Treatment Act of 1974, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.^[65] There has also been a decline of arrest rates in street youth, dropping in 30,000 arrests from 1998 to 2007. Instead, the authorities are referring homeless youth to state-run social service agencies.^[66]

Government and non-government responses

Responses by governments

While some governments have implemented programs to deal with street children, the general solution involves placing the children into orphanages, juvenile homes, or correctional institutions.^[67][68] Efforts have been made by various governments to support or partner with non-government organizations.^[69] In Colombia, the government has tried to implement programs to put these children in state-run homes, but efforts have largely failed, and street children have become a victim group of social cleansing by the National Police because they are assumed to be drug users and criminals.^[70]

Public approaches to street children

There are four categories of how societies deal with street children: Correctional model, Rehabilitative model, Outreach strategies, and Preventive approach.

• The Correctional model is primarily used by governments and the police. They view children as a public nuisance and risk to security of the general public. The objective of this model would be to protect the public and help keep the kids away from a life of crime. The methods this model uses to keep the children away from the life of crime are the juvenile justice system and specific institutions.
• The Rehabilitative model is supported by churches and NGOs. The view of this model is that street children are damaged and in need of help. The objective of this model is to rehabilitate children into mainstream society. The methods used to keep children from going back to the streets are education, drug detoxification programs, and providing children with a safe family-like environment.
• The Outreach strategy is supported by street teachers, NGOs, and church organizations. This strategy views street children as oppressed individuals in need of support from their communities. The objective of the Outreach strategy is to empower the street children by providing outreach education and training to support children.
• The Preventive approach is supported by NGOs, the coalition of street children, and lobbying governments. They view street children’s poor circumstances from negative social and economic forces. In order to help street children, this approach focuses on the problems that cause children to leave their homes for the street by targeting parents’ unemployment, poor housing campaign for children’s rights.^[71]

NGO responses

Non-government organizations employ a wide variety of strategies to address the needs and rights of street children. One example of NGO effort is "The Street Children‘s Day", launched by Jugend Eine Welt on January 31, 2009 to highlight the situation of street children. The "Street Children's Day" has been commemorated every year since its inception in 2009.^[72]

Street children differ in age, gender, ethnicity, social class and these children have had different experiences throughout their lifetimes. UNICEF differentiates between the different types of children living on the street in three different categories: candidates for the street (street children who work and hang out on the streets), children on the streets (children who work on the street but have a home to go to at night), and children of the street (children who live on the street without family support).[45]

Horatio Alger's book, Tattered Tom; or, The Story of a Street Arab (1871), is an early example of the appearance of street children in literature. The book follows the tale of a homeless girl who lives by her wits on the streets of New York, US. Other examples from popular fiction include Kim, from Kipling's novel of the same name, who is a street child in colonial India. Gavroche, in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Fagin's crew of child pickpockets in Oliver Twist, a similar group of child thieves in Funke's The Thief Lord, and Sherlock Holmes' "Baker Street Irregulars" are other notable examples of the presence of street children in popular works of literature.

See also

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

References

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Street children.

• Street Child: is a UK charity, that aims to create educational opportunity for some of the most vulnerable children in West Africa.
• Azad Foundation (Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan): Pakistan's Leading Non-profit working with Street Children.
• Street Children Resource Center (Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan)
• Dehleez: Pakistan's First and Only transit shelter home built specifically for Street Children.
• The Hope Foundation: Offering protection, education and healthcare to street children in Kolkata, India
• Street Children in Gimbi, Ethiopia, including documentary of a specific boy
• 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
• Street Children's Day - 31 January (in German): Day to highlight the situation of these children and young people.