Street Children

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:33:27 +0100

Who are they?

A street child is any child that works and/or lives on the street. Children who work on the street may become involved in scavenging, begging, hawking, prostitution or theft to aid their basic survival. Many street children are vulnerable to abuse, at risk of poor health, exploited by older children or adults, and in some cases, at risk from vigilantes. Additionally, there is a tendency to view street children as criminals, victims, or as free spirits. They sleep in abandoned buildings, under bridges, in doorways, or in public parks.

Children and youth may take to the streets for a number of reasons including war, poverty, urbanization, political instability, natural disasters, family breakdown, AIDS, rebellion against their parents, insufficient income, and violence including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Children who live and work on the streets are often the victims of violence, sexual exploitation, neglect, chemical addiction, and human rights violations. For example, street children throughout the world are abused—and sometimes murdered—by police, other authorities, and individuals who are supposed to protect them

They often create family and security by living in groups with other children. They may also sell small items, or undertake manual labour. When there are no other means of survival, street children with and without formal family contacts may resort to petty theft and prostitution for survival. Street kids may prostitute themselves because they need the money, because they are looking for praise they can't get anywhere else, or because their families, or family contacts, force them into this activity. They are extremely vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Child prostitutes can be boys or girls, but are more often girls. Up to 90 percent of street children use psychoactive substances, including medicines, alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, cannabis, and readily available industrial products such as shoe or cobblers' glue and paint thinner. The potent fumes of these cheap and easily available inhalants hit a part of the child's brain that suppresses feelings of hunger, cold, and loneliness. Solvent-based narcotics offer them an escape from reality. But they must exchange their temporary highs for physical and psychological problems—hallucinations, pulmonary edema (fluid accumulation and swelling in the lungs), kidney failure, irreversible brain damage and, in some cases, sudden death.

Today's youth will become the largest generation to enter adulthood. By 2025, its estimated that six out of ten urban dwellers are expected to be under 18 years of age. Ignoring the rights of street children threatens human development around the world. Street children deserve respect. They are valuable members of society. Some street children run thriving businesses, supporting themselves, their families, and other children. We must hear their voices, listen to their stories, and learn from them. We need to recognize that children and youth are full of imagination, desires, and hopes and that they must be involved in decisions that affect their lives.

They need access to counselling, information, knowledge, skills, and a supportive community to protect themselves from harm, help them move off the street, and take back control of their future. They also need better access to health and safety services—medical care, legal aid, and food—and business training so they can develop safe and more profitable ways of earning money.

These children are not just victims—they are survivors. They often show incredible resilience in overcoming or living in the midst of adversity. They have developed coping mechanisms for caring for themselves, and for friends or family members. These children are active participants in their families, workplaces, and communities.

But, without improved protection and promotion of their rights together with increased opportunities, many of these children are likely to remain marginalized throughout their childhood and into adulthood.

Whatever the reality, when working to improve the lives of street children, it is essential to work together with them to understand the reasons why they are on the streets or why they are at risk of finding themselves there. Every child has a right to grow up in a nurturing environment where they can realize their full potential. The street, with the risks it poses, is not such an environment.

(Excerpt from http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/REN-218125542-Q3B)

Nakuru Youth Foundation is committed in advocating for the rights of the street children in as equally as we advocate for the rights of other children living with their respective parents and families. We shall not cease to urge and lobby for each individual in our communities to take responsibility upon ourselves to see to it that these children, through the legal arms of government and society, are accorded the treatment that they deserve, that of leading a proper and normal childhood in a befitting environment.

These shall only be achieved if the rates and levels of poverty within our respective communities are brought down to manageable levels and where each family is able to provide for itself on a day to day basis, giving the children the time and opportunity to explore and live out their childhood.

These leads us to the Millennium development goals in which these issues are targeted and to which many governments in the world, especially the developing countries (Kenya included) signed and committed themselves to achieving.

For further reading and information on what is most recent and how each and everyone of us can get involved, please check out the links under the Blog roll tab on the right of this page.

street-children

Street Children