The threat of street children

1. General Information

The problem of street children is found in almost every part of the world. Street children are homeless, they spend day and night on the street, they have no one to take care of them, they have no shelter, they often do small jobs to survive, they become beggars or victims of sexual abuse and other social transgressions.

They live in abandoned buildings, parks, garages, workshops, and outdoors. They are deprived of the care and protection of the family. They cannot be assimilated into society and become a liability rather than an asset. Without education, they become a workforce that has no future. They are mostly teenagers, but some are as young as seven to twelve years old.

2. Causes

There can be many causes behind this problem. These include;

• Rampant poverty,
• Domestic violence,
• Family disintegration,
• Orphans
• Armed conflicts,
• Displacement,
• Famine,
• Natural disasters,
• Physical and sexual abuse,
• Exploitation by adults,
• Urbanization and overcrowding,
• Acculturation,
• Diseases and others.

Due to these causes, children become the target of neglect, abuse, exploitation, and sometimes even murder. They move to the big cities to find work to survive. They feel scared and helpless. They cannot even save themselves from the cruelties of the weather and have no access to medicine when they fall ill. Lacking the qualifications, education, or skills necessary to adapt to society, they disconnect and end up on the streets.

3. Categories

Street children can be found mainly in two categories. One who becomes the bully type or the ones who learn to survive by means considered illegal in civilized society. They end up engaging in criminal or unethical activities. Their activities can range from pickpocketing to vandalism, from robbery to daco, from rape to murder, from drug trafficking to child trafficking. They become protected from gangsters, face police torture, and sometimes become violent with strangers.

It all starts with the basic survival instinct. A street child will do anything to survive. He would be afraid of doing something illegal at first, but he would do it when he had a hard time doing it. As illiterate and without professional training, they face difficulties in finding suitable jobs. Also the public has overwhelmingly negative opinions about them. The public views them with suspicion and fear, while many would like them to disappear. Street children are victims of illegal activities, sometimes in reaction to the aforementioned discretionary attitude towards them and sometimes to support themselves.

Many of these types of street children become juvenile delinquents and find a place in overcrowded prisons. There they have every chance of becoming hardened criminals. They even subdue their fellow street children to do their bidding. Some become members of street gangs, drug mafias and child trafficking. They form their own pressure groups. These are exploited and manipulated by more powerful people, such as private business owners, civilians, law enforcement personnel, and security agencies.

The second category of street children includes those who have become victims of their peers and other man-made problems. They lack the tactics, willpower, or physical stamina to keep up with the demands of their hard life. These are the most vulnerable to social ills such as physical and sexual abuse, torture, exploitation, child trafficking, begging and drugs, among others. Underage girls and boys may be subjected to prostitution or other sexual activities by force, duress or fraud.

4. Child trafficking, an example

Child trafficking is a particular example of the horrors these children face. Victims of child trafficking are mostly from the second category of street children. They are recruited, transported, housed and received for different exploitation purposes. Trafficking may include widespread purposes such as forced labor, servitude, slavery, and organ harvesting, or it may include illicit activities such as prostitution, sexual exploitation, early marriage, child soldiers, and begging. The United Nations and other NGOs are continuously working to counter this practice. Many governments have also enacted laws to prevent this practice.

In developing countries, they are a source of cheap labor. Maids, workshop boys, hotel servants, messengers, delivery men, nannies and even servants can be seen to form a group of cheap labor.

A particular case of this type is that of children from South Asia who are trafficked to the Middle East as camel jockeys. These children are kept in unhealthy congested places with no or limited access to the basic comforts of life. They were then blindfolded and forced to ride camels in races. Your food and other wages are related to your performance in racing. If a child does not perform well, they can be tortured or kept without food for days.

5. Main problems faced by street children

The main problems these children face are;

• Hunger,
• Diseases
• Loneliness,
• Delinquency,
• Dirt,
• Prostitution,
• Violence,
• Slavery,
• Trafficking in children and
• Abuse

These are the problems that street children mainly face, but in order to eliminate them effectively, we first have to solve some more important problems. These include;

• Illiteracy,
• Professional training,
• Help to shape your future,
• Sense of alienation, and
• Absence of love

6. Work done

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides the basic framework for protecting street children. Although most governments have ratified the aforementioned treaty, they have failed to protect these children. Governments find no economic influence on their welfare. Furthermore, these children do not have the right to vote or participate in governance. That is why governments pay little attention to them. In general, when governments tend to find a solution, they send these children to orphanages, juvenile homes, or correctional facilities. Governments sometimes work in collaboration with NGOs on many programs aimed at the well-being of these children.

7. Suggestions

The problem of street children can be adequately handled if we can develop a multifaceted strategy that works for the well-being and comfort of both society and the child.

This can involve;

• Defense of the cause of street children,
• Education and community support,
• Residential rehabilitation programs,
• Full-care residential homes and
• Other similar programs.

Some NGOs have successfully applied the following strategies;

• Special targeted feeding programs that provide food supplements to these children,
• Provide free medical services to these children,
• Legal assistance to claim their rights and stand up for themselves,
• Education in an environment that helps them learn rather than forcing them to avoid schools,
• Family reunification whenever possible,
• Night shelter centers and reception centers for them.
• Psychological and moral support that provides a better integration in the general population,
• Change the attitude of street children towards their circumstances, making them more self-aware and self-sufficient.