Street children
Street children are poor or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids, or urchins; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policymakers use UNICEF's concept of boys and girls, aged under 18 years, for whom "the street" has become home and/or their source of livelihood, and who are inadequately protected or supervised. Street girls are sometimes called gamines, a term that is also used for Colombian street children of either sex.
Some street children, notably in more developed nations, are part of a subcategory called thrown-away children, consisting of children who have been forced to leave home. Thrown-away children are more likely to come from single-parent homes. 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.
Definitions
According to Consortium for Street Children, a street child has been defined as one "for whom the street has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood; and who is inadequately protected, supervised, or directed by responsible adults".Statistics and distribution
Street children can be found in a large majority of the world's famous cities, with the phenomenon more prevalent in densely populated urban hubs of developing or economically unstable regions, such as some countries in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia.According to a report from 1988 of the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom-based consortium of related non-governmental organizations, 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 one hundred 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." In an attempt to form a more reliable estimate, a statistical model based on the number of street children and relevant social indicators for 184 countries was developed; according to this model, there are 10 to 15 million street children in the world. Although it produced a statistically reliable estimate of the number of street children, the model is highly dependent on the definition of "street children," national estimates, and data collected on the development level of the country, and it is thus limited in range. The one hundred million figure is still commonly cited for street children, but is not based on currently available academic research. 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.
Comprehensive street level research, completed in the year 2000 in Cape Town proved that international estimates of tens of thousands of street children living on the streets of Cape Town were incorrect. This research proved, that even with street children begging at every intersection, rivers of street children sleeping on the pavements at night, and with gangs of street children roaming around the streets, there were less than 800 children living on the streets of greater Cape Town at this time. This insight enabled a whole new approach to street children to be developed, one not based on the provision of basic care to masses of street children, but one focused on helping individual children, on healing, educating, stabilizing, and developing them permanently away from street life, as well as managing the exploitation of street children and the support factors that keep them on the street.
History
In 1848, Lord Ashley referred to more than 30,000 "naked, filthy, roaming lawless, and deserted children" in and around London, UK. Among many English novels featuring them as a humanitarian problem are Jessica's First Prayer by Sarah Smith and Georgina Castle Smith's Nothing to Nobody.By 1922, there were at least seven million homeless children in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic due to the devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War. Abandoned children formed gangs, created their own argot, and engaged in petty theft and prostitution.
Causes
The causes of this phenomenon are varied, but are often related to domestic, economic, or social disruption. This includes, but is not limited to: poverty; breakdown of homes and/or families; political unrest; acculturation; sexual, physical or emotional abuse; domestic violence; being lured away by pimps, internet predators, or begging syndicates; mental health problems; substance abuse; and sexual orientation or gender identity issues. Children may end up on the streets due to cultural factors. For example, some children in parts of the Congo and Uganda are made to leave their families on suspicion of being witches who bring bad luck. In Afghanistan, young girls who are accused of "honor crimes" that shame their families and/or cultural practices may be forced to leave their homes ‒ this could include refusing an arranged marriage, or even being raped or sexually abused, if that is considered adultery in their culture. Regardless of the cause, there are negative impacts on the health of street children, for example on their respiratory healthBy country
Africa
Kenya
UNICEF works with CARITAS and with other non-governmental organizations in Kenya to address street children.South Africa
Street Children are legally protected by the South African Children's Act, Act 38 of 2005, which defines street children as "children living, working and begging on the street" and as "Children in need of Care and Protection". South Africa has done much to address street children and the South African government now partially funds street children organisations. Parents of vulnerable children can access a monthly child care grant, and organisations have developed effective street outreach, drop-in centres, therapeutic residential care, and prevention and early intervention services for street children.Comprehensive Street level research, completed in the year 2000 in Cape Town, proved that international estimates of tens of thousands of street children living on the street were incorrect. This research proved, that even with street children begging at every intersection, rivers of street children sleeping on the pavements at night, and with gangs of street children roaming around the streets, there were less than 800 children living on the streets of greater Cape Town at this time. This insight enabled a whole new approach to street children to be developed, one not based on the provision of basic care to masses of street children, but one focused on helping individual children, on healing, educating, stabilizing, and developing them permanently away from street life, as well as managing exploitation of street children and support factors that keep them on the street.
This approach has effectively reduced the number of children living on the streets of Cape Town by over 90%, even with over 200 children continuing to move onto the street each year. It has also seen absconding-from-care rates decline to less than 7%, and the success rate for getting children off the street has reached 80 to 90%. The number of street-vulnerable children, that is the number of chronically neglected, sexually and physically abused, traumatised community children, remains however unacceptably high, with school drop-out rates a real concern and with schools battling to deal with the high number of traumatized children they have to contend with.
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, with 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. There are also an estimated 300,000 children in Sierra Leone without access to education. Often neglected rural areas – of which there are many – offer little or no opportunity for children to break from the existing cycle of poverty.