Street Children in the early years of the 21st
Century.Reports of
the prevalence, abuse & exploitation of children who make their homes
in the street, sometimes called street children, street kids, street
homeless children, community children & rough sleepers.
Street
Children
The Prevalence, Abuse
& Exploitation of Street Children
The term street children refers
to children for whom the street more than their family has become their
real home.It includes children who
might not necessarily be homeless or without families, but who live in
situations where there is no protection, supervision, or direction from
responsible adults.
The way a society treats its children reflects
not only its qualities of compassion and protective caring, but also sense of
justice, its commitment to the future, and its urge to enhance the human condition
for coming generations. This is as indisputably true of the community of nations, as
it is of nations individually. - Javier Perez de Cuellar, Peru, Fifth Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 1, 1982 to December 31, 1991)
At Mumbai's
central train station, young boys like this one arrive daily from rural
India thinking they will find work in order to send money home.[photo by Kay Chernush
for the U.S. State Department]
Philippines - Medecins Sans Frontieres
operates a program targeting 200 out of an estimated 200,000 children
who live on the streets of the capital, Manila – [photo copyright by
Roger Job]
Street kids, runaways, or
children living in poverty can fall under the control of traffickers who
force them into begging rings. Children are sometimes intentionally
disfigured to attract more money from passersby. Victims of organized begging
rings are often beaten or injured if they don't bring in enough money. They
are also vulnerable to sexual abuse.[photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department]
A Roma (gypsy) child finds
herself on the side of a road in northern Italy, ironically wearing a shirt
that proclaims, "Outsider." Her family, which fled the ethnic
turmoil in Bosnia, is always on the move. Poverty, discrimination, and social
customs combine to make Roma children vulnerable to trafficking[photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State
Department]
All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use
CITE AS:Patt, Prof.
Martin, "Street Children", http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/,
[accessed <date>]
website
created by Prof. Martin Patt, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts
Research
assistant: Arkadiy Abramov ; Editorial assistant: Dmitriy Ioselevich
