Estimated to be around 120 million children living on the streets in the world (30 million in Africa, 30 million in Asia, and 60 million in South America)

What is a street child?

Street children are minors who live and survive on the streets. They often grow up in public landfills, train stations, our under the bridges of the world’s major cities. Because of conflicts with their family, these children don’t want to or can’t return home.

Why does a child live on the streets?

The phenomenon of street children is multifaceted. The combination of familial, economic, social, and political factors play an important role in their situation. It is therefore very difficult to single out one or more causes.

However, children who have been questioned say that family, poverty, abuse, war, etc. are often why they left for the streets.

What are the problems encountered by street children?

Street children are confronted by a large number of problems. In fact, growing up in an environment generally regarded as dangerous, they incur considerable risks.

As a consequence, some of their rights are very often compromised.

Right to Food

Street children often don’t have access to a healthy and sufficient diet. Sometimes they don’t even have food, because living on the streets,  they don’t produce any and don’t have money to buy.

Also, these children don’t benefit from a balanced diet: they eat what they can find. Sometimes, when they have the choice, they even favour unhealthy foods such as ice cream, cakes, etc. and so run the risk of malnutrition. Growth problems are also common with these children.

Right to Health

The health of children growing up on the streets is strongly compromised. In fact, they don’t have access to sanitary facilities: they are often dirty and infested with fleas.

Also, because of their lack of hygiene, street children are exposed to different diseases. Their health is often troubling. Without a family to take care of them, these youth must take care of themselves.

Additionally, street children, to escape their reality, often use cannabis, alcohol, or inhale natural gas. Unfortunately, these very hard living conditions, have a negative impact not only on their physical and psychosocial development, but also on their cultural and economic development.

Right to Education

Street Children are obviously not educated. Because of this, they don’t have the same opportunities as other children. In fact, because they don’t see a future for themselves, and because they have no professional training, they are hindered from finding a job and from finally leaving the streets.

Right to Non-discrimination

“People speak badly of us,

they blame us for everything, and call us wad-bi or drogue-gnoudba.”

Seen as marginals, street youth are often victims of discrimination. Generally, adults have prejudices that stigmatise them as “street children”. Consequently, they are often associated with the dangers of the streets. It is often difficult for these children to reintegrate into society.

What can be done to help street children?

The problem of street children is dependant on their situation and not on their status. In fact, each child has a personal history with the street that cannot be generalised. Because of this, the care of street children must, to be effective, hinge on the different situations on the streets, in other words, on the many “child profiles”. It is important to analyse the relationship a child has with the street.

In order to better understand children living and growing up on the streets, it is essential both to make them participate, and to put them in contact with key institutions or individuals looking to understand the structural causes of their situation.

Why development agencies must not allow street children to get left behind in the Sustainable Development Goals.

International Development agencies sure have a lot on their plates lately. From extreme poverty to conflict to urban crowding to health crises around the world, it seems that development organizations  and workers are being asked to do more, fund more and analyse more. Is it any wonder that development agencies and donors are responding by making tough decisions on which issues to focus on, and which ones they must reluctantly decline?

I am the Chief Executive of a wonderful little organization that brings together NGOs around the globe who have one focus in mind – street children. We work tirelessly to highlight the seemingly intractable forces which pull and push children to the street, and the ways that they are treated once they find themselves there – and to propose long term solutions for change.  I believe that it is possible to address these issues within the wider development and human rights frameworks and agenda, and to do so in a way that addresses the needs of children and delivers solid development outcomes at the same time.

While 20 years ago there was a lot of media attention on street children, one could almost be forgiven if they now thought that children no longer had to grow up or suffer on the streets. Our attention is diverted constantly by climate change, disasters, conflict and other crises on a global scale. Every organization, in order to have any chance of success and survival, has had to draw up strategies and plans that keep them in the public eye and on global agendas.  Upon taking over the helm of Consortium for Street Children last year from 25 years working in international development and human rights, I was shocked to learn just how many agencies have excluded street children from their priorities.  I understand the need to prioritise – but I am arguing that focussing on street children allows us all to further our development and human rights goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals – the core principle of development for the next decade – were drawn up in part to ensure a concerted global effort and commitment to Leaving No One Behind. Most, if not all, development agencies subscribe to this.  Leaving anyone behind is the antithesis to both human rights and development. Many agencies believe they are successful in this endeavour. And certainly most development organizations are not leaving behind the children that they can see and count, and invest significant portions of their annual budgets to programming for children.

However, at CSC we know that street children are often the most invisible. As well as being hard to find and track, often they have a vested interested in ensuring they are not counted if being counted means being at risk of arrest or abuse. They may have to move on frequently and not stay in one place if remaining still means they are likely to be rounded up.  And when they are seen, some development agencies have remarked that they are mostly boys – meaning that even amongst the invisible, girls are even more so.

If street children are not seen, not counted, how can they possibly be included in programmes aimed at visible children?  How can they benefit from the development programmes that are often very successful?  If they cannot enrol at a new school that has just been built by a charity because they don’t have a birth certificate, then they are being left behind. If they cannot enter a health clinic if not accompanied by a parent then they are being left behind. If they are routinely detained just for begging or sleeping in the open, how can access to justice programmes serve them?

I state this because although these children may not be counted at this moment, they can still be accounted for. While our new campaign “The 4 Steps to Equality” tells governments the steps they need to take to fully promote and protect street children’s rights, the Consortium for Street Children calls on development agencies, donors and human rights organizations to also promote and protect street children’s’ rights to development – and to focus on ensuring they are included in all their health, education, livelihoods and justice programmes and are not left behind.

In short, when striving to leave no one behind, we must proactively strive to plan for the most vulnerable, and make our strategic plans and priorities from there. Because development and human rights protection without street children is no development or protection at all.

Caroline Ford is the Chief Executive of CSC, a network of over 100 organizations working at the grassroots with street children around the world. She has worked in development, humanitarian crises and human rights in Africa, Asia and the Balkans for 25 years, and now resides in London.

Equality for street children starts here. Let’s make it happen.

PAKISTAN’S (STREET) CHILDREn

So run the lines of a popular patriotic jingle which articulates a responsibility that few Pakistanis would shy away from. However, it is equally true that the future of Pakistani children, and the future of this country, is being jeopardised daily in its bazaars and shopping centres, at its street signals and railway stations, while we, the sentinels, look on.

One needn’t look far to find a street child in Pakistan. Nor is there a dearth of news stories or reports on the issue. However, despite the coverage that this issue receives, and perhaps in part because of it, somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 million children are thought to be on the streets of Pakistan’s major cities. These children, who often have little or no contact with their families, form one of the most vulnerable strata of society and are denied basic rights such as access to shelter, education and healthcare. To the extent that the basic rights of street children are not already being violated, they are highly exposed to the risk of being drawn into abusive situations including engagement in child labour and subjection to sexual exploitation, trafficking and arbitrary arrest and detention.

However, on a more selfish note, overlooking the issues faced by street children also translates into larger, tangible problems. These children, ostracised from society, are easy prey for those operating at its fringes with potentially disastrous consequences for the mainstream. Whilst reports that street children often engage in petty crime are unsurprising, many of these children are also opted into more systemised forms of criminal activity including recruitment into criminal and terrorist gangs.

Nor do the problems stemming from our desensitisation to this issue stop here. It is not news that untoward experiences faced by children during their formative years have the potential to deeply influence their behaviour as adults. Where such experiences involve sexual abuse, drug abuse and other forms of criminal activity, street children become yet another agent through which these ills may be perpetuated in society.

So the next time you’re faced by a street child in a bazaar, or at a street signal, please do take a moment to consider the compromised future that each child with a dirt smudged face and tattered clothes embodies; a compromised future that we are all helping create unless we take action now. We can take action in a multitude of ways: advocating for the rights of all children, including those on the street; increasing budgets for the social sector, mainly education and putting all necessary efforts to bring street children to school support through specific programmes for their families and the children themselves; ensuring that health services are accessible to these children on the street who are in dire need of social support; adopting a child and giving it a loving home, on an individual level.

By consciously trying to shrug off our apathetic stupor when we see these faces on the street, we can make a difference. We can stand up for someone’s rights.