Street children. Do you care?

Once a child leaves the family home for whatever reason to live on the street, he is labeled as a street child. The term “Street Children” in a very narrow sense may suggest children such as those popularly known as ‘rag pickers’ in India, ‘parking boys’ in Kenya, ‘Peggy boys’ in the Philippines, ‘pivetes’ in Brazil, ‘pajaro frutero’ in Peru and ‘homeless youth’ or ‘runaways’ in some developed countries (Agrawal, 1999).These children are the causalities of economic woes, war, poverty, loss of traditional values, domestic violence and physical and psychological abuses.

Street 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. They seldom have a choice and going to school is always out of question. As a result, these young souls turn to narcotics or to sniffing rubber solvent

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.

Many street children gather money by begging, washing cars, selling water and newspapers or other items or via prostitution, receiving only a small cut from the money that gets collected. Then there are those who pick plastic, glass, metal and other knick-knack from the garbage thrown out on the streets, and sell them to the shopkeepers.

Other problems encountered by street children include:
Living under exposed conditions on the streets, waste land, or public space most of the time,
Working in the streets on jobs of low status and low income,
Having no or little parental supervision or other social protection,
Having, intermittent or no family contact at all,
Being vulnerable to the hazards of urbanization and urban living conditions such as air pollution and many others.

How can we intervene?

To deal specifically with the problems faced by street children, governments, humanitarian organizations and even individuals such as you and I can:

·         Provide them with meals and the space to rest or engage in recreational activities.

·         Training social workers on the rights of children and the risks that the children face on the street,

·         Providing training directly to the children themselves through the social workers.

·         Provide health services ranging from check-ups to hospital referrals.

·         A number of the children at the rescue centers can be 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.

Information sources:
Shelter Don Bosco
PHD thesis By Dr.Ameer Ali Abro
UNICEF website