Street Children

▪ 1995

Introduction

by Marilyn E. Rocky

      An estimated 100 million children and youths between the ages of 5 and 18 spend the major part of their lives in the city streets of the less developed world. Most of these "street children," as they have come to be known, work "on" the street. They live at home but are forced into the streets to contribute to their families' meagre incomes in whatever way they can: by shining shoes, selling newspapers, hauling garbage, begging, and engaging in prostitution. The rest of these street children, called children "of" the street, live, work, and sleep on city streets and maintain minimal or no ties with their families.

      In some parts of the world, the growing numbers of street children and their problems have been ignored. They constitute a population that does not show up in health or public education statistics or national censuses. The traditional response to this problem, in both less developed countries (LDCs) and industrialized ones, has been to institutionalize the children in state reform schools or isolated residential facilities.

      In other cases street children have been ignored or treated as a public nuisance. In some countries "death squads" willfully torture and murder street children—their response to the growing street-crime statistics. During the past decade more than 5,000 Brazilian street children have been murdered by such vigilante groups. Human rights groups in Brazil claimed that private security forces were killing street children and other low-income youths as part of an effort to clean up the streets. Reports from South Africa, Colombia, Haiti, Guatemala, Thailand, and elsewhere point to similar trends of violence.

Underlying Causes.

      The two most commonly asked questions about street children are: Where do they come from, and why are there so many? Some suggested causes include rapid urbanization, national debt problems, economic stagnation, and drought, deforestation, and other forms of environmental degradation. Rapid population growth, unsustainable agricultural practices, and government policies that subsidize urban dwellers at the expense of rural farmers have caused increasing numbers of families and youths in the LDCs to move into cities in search of economic opportunities.

      About one-third of the population of the LDCs now lives in urban areas. The United Nations estimates that within 15-20 years the LDCs will become predominantly urban, and the majority of urban dwellers will reside in low-income, marginal neighbourhoods. As more and more families settle in slum areas near large cities, they will lose the social and kinship networks found in rural areas. The side effects of this increasingly urban-based poverty are devastating: a lack of access to education, the breakup of families, malnutrition, inadequate health services, susceptibility to infectious diseases, vulnerability to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), physical and sexual abuse, and drug abuse and prostitution. The children of poor urban dwellers are most directly affected, and increasing numbers of children are forced to contribute to their families' economic survival by turning to the streets.

      In recent years the growth of the youth population and economic stagnation in LDCs have led to the growing participation of children and youths in the labour force. Worldwide estimates of the total number of working children—a term that includes both street children and children earning income in a variety of settings beyond ambulatory work in urban streets—range from 89 million (International Labour Organisation) to 145 million (UN).

Menial Labour.

      Work that street children can perform typically is the kind that requires few formal skills and produces relatively little income—selling cigarettes, gum, candy, or newspapers; hauling garbage; washing cars or windshields; guarding cars; or carrying luggage for tourists. Less savoury sources of income include begging, theft, robbery, prostitution, and drug trafficking.

      Working street children in LDCs range in age, although children as young as four can be found begging or selling on street corners or buses. Younger children are usually accompanied by their parents or siblings and work as part of family businesses.

      A significant percentage of working street children are girls, many of them employed as street hawkers and peddlers. A Latin-American study found girls working both on and off the streets as vendors, maids, waitresses, dishwashers, and prostitutes. Other girls were involved in begging, stealing, scavenging in dumps, singing on street corners, carrying bags or luggage, or accepting other kinds of manual labour.

      Most girls work either full- or part-time but continue to return home. Street girls are clearly subject to greater risk of sexual exploitation than boys, but they are also more susceptible to economic exploitation because of their gender. In a number of Latin-American countries, the lives of street girls and other working girls are characterized by early sexual initiation and abuse; exposure to STDs, including AIDS; and unwanted pregnancies. A significant number of girls work in brothels or on the streets as prostitutes, placing them at even higher risk of acquiring STDs.

Coping Strategies.

      While the work of street children is often risky or harmful to their own well-being, it is nonetheless crucial to the survival of millions of families in LDCs. In Jamaica 33% of the street children in one survey said that they were the only working member of their household, and 41% were from families with only one other working member. Similarly, in Lagos, Nigeria, studies found that children hawking goods on the street were able to sell between two and four times as much as adults. Most of the children surveyed reported that their mothers would have difficulty meeting the family's basic needs without the child's income.

      Children are very resourceful, and those on the street find ways of adapting to the difficulties of their daily lives. Limited data suggest that a majority of children on the streets are regular drug users. In Guatemala as many as 9 of every 10 street children are thought to be addicted to paint thinner, cheap glue, or more potent drugs. Similarly, in Colombia it is estimated that on a daily basis more than 95% of Bogota's 12,000 street children use drugs.

      Drugs also offer a means of escape and release from daily pressures of life and survival. Street children in Kenya said that they sniffed glue to enable themselves to eat the rotten food they needed in order to survive. Street children in Central America reported that the chief attraction of inhaling glue was that it took away their hunger. Because drugs offer street children an escape from difficult situations, they view them not as one of their problems but rather as part of the solution to their struggles.

      Regular drug use by street children can have serious physical side effects. Industrial glue, when inhaled, produces light-headedness, occasional hallucinations, loss of appetite, and nausea. Long-term health problems can include lung, brain, or kidney damage; malnutrition; and a general decline in health. While there seems to be no physical addiction involved in the inhaling of glue, psychological withdrawal symptoms can be strong. Drug use among street children is closely related to other health issues, including prostitution and sexual exploitation, all of which have contributed to a growing incidence of AIDS among street children and youths.

Worldwide Response.

      During the past decade organizations and governments worldwide have begun to act to rescue this generation of children from exploitation, violence, and degradation. Benchmarks have been established, and several important steps have been taken by international nongovernmental organizations and by development organizations to create local, national, and international networks and movements to aid street children.

      In 1986 CHILDHOPE was founded in response to UNICEF's search for an international nongovernmental organization that could serve as a partner. It was in this capacity that CHILDHOPE began to address the needs of both abandoned and street children and to serve as an international coordinator of services for street children.

      Many other advocacy organizations have been formed to defend the rights of street children, provide them with appropriate services, and, most significantly, develop programs to meet their special and specific needs. The most successful have been noninstitutional street-based projects that are grounded in the understanding that the focus of a street child's life and activities, especially generating income, is the street. The most successful programs use street educators, specially trained individuals (often veterans of the street) who serve as a kind of "connective tissue" between the child and the community.

      During the mid-1980s in Brazil, street children organized their own advocacy group. The National Movement for Street Boys and Girls has evolved into a major political and social force over the past decade and boasts a membership of more than 80,000 street children and youths throughout the country. The efforts of the movement have resulted in new legislation for the protection and well-being of all children in that country.

      The U.S. government has earmarked money for street children in its foreign assistance budget over the past few years. Congress has appropriated funds to the U.S. Agency for International Development for use by local groups in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

      The issue of street children became so compelling during the 1980s and the early 1990s that it finally moved leaders and governments to respond. It appears that the world has slowly begun to acknowledge that a large number of its youngest citizens—the future of our planet—are living in unthinkable conditions, and the foundation for the mobilization of resources to aid this most vulnerable population has now been put in place.

      The essence of the problem was eloquently stated by James Grant, executive director of UNICEF, at the second International Encounter of Street Children, held in Brazil in 1992. Grant called for the joining of forces among all sectors to combat the enormous problems confronting street children, including death squads, exploitation, and AIDS. He concluded that it was "personally unacceptable, ethically unthinkable, that on the eve of the 21st century, children and youth, by the tens of millions, should have to call the streets their home."

Marilyn E. Rocky is the director of CHILDHOPE.

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