Children Living or Working on the Street

Children living and working on the street are some of the most excluded and unprotected in the world. While some are homeless with their families, or return home at night after working on the street, many others are without parental care or a home and have no viable alternatives. This may be the result of family disintegration, conflict, poverty, HIV/AIDS, abuse or neglect. Life on the street exposes children to a myriad of risks and robs them of the safety and comfort that a family environment can offer.

Children living and working on the streets are highly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, addictions, and crime, and lack access to everyday essential services such as health and education. Their situation is made more difficult as a result of social perceptions of street children. Street children are frequently targeted by the police, beaten, held and charged without due process. Government policies, institutions, and communities may exclude or marginalise children on the street, and deny their basic human rights.

Children living and working on the streets require legal protection by the state, recognition of their rights, and access to public services. Reception and drop- in centres can provide an entry point to basic services, including shelter, food and health provision, education, and income generation projects. While such initiatives can help to sustain children on the street and protect them from high risk behaviours, organisations working with vulnerable children need to work towards preventative measures to reduce the numbers of children who end up homeless. Prevention begins with an assessment of the causes of family separation, identification of those most at risk, and strategies to support family and community placements.

The opinions and preferences of children already on the street must form an integral part of any strategy since the empowerment of such children is necessary to effect change in their own lives. Community reintegration services should be established where possible to provide children with an alternative to street life. All placements, such as kinship or foster care, must be regulated to ensure that they meet the needs of children and are in their best interests.

The resources in this section provide statistical and country information on the situation of children living and working on the street, assessments of their needs, and intervention examples relating to support services, care planning, and access to health and education programmes.

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Separated Childhoods Webinar #1: Responding to Varied Experiences of Childhood Separation

Global Childhood Studies Journal, 08 Jun 2022

This is a recording of the first session in a webinar series celebrating the launch of of a themed issue of Global Childhood Studies journal (Volume.2; Issue.1). This first webinar focuses on Responding to varied experiences of childhood separation.

The Role of Resilience Processes in Education and Well-Being Outcomes for Separated Children in Uganda: Exploring Street-Connected Children’s Pathways Through a Resilience-Based Programme and Beyond

Ruth Edmonds, Alfred Ochaya, Nicola Sansom, 12 Mar 2022

This article explores the role resilience processes play in education and well-being outcomes for street-connected children. It draws on research and practice undertaken as part of the Building with Bamboo Programme (BwB) on resilience. BwB investigated the forms a resilience-based approach might usefully take in practice, the effect this has on promoting resilience in children, and how this resilience leads to improved outcomes in their lives.

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Child Abandonment and the Question of Child Rights: a study of Skolombo boys and Lakasara girls of Calabar, cross rivers state, Nigeria

Adekunle Alaye, 30 Dec 2021

This study examined the reasons for the pervasiveness of the practice of child abandonment, using the “Skolombo Boys and Lakasara Girls’’ in Calabar, the state capital of Cross River State, Nigeria, as the analytical context.

Presentations: Meeting on Child and Family Outcome Measurement

Hope and Homes for Children, Miracle Foundation and Railway Children, 20 Aug 2021

These presentations from Hope and Homes for Children, Miracle Foundation and Railway Children were delivered during the August 20, 2021, workshop of the Care Measurement Task Force of the Transforming Children's Care Global Collaborative Platform. The focus of the workshop was child and family outcome measurement.

COVID-19 and Street Connected Children Impacts, Responses and Opportunities

Ruth Edmonds, Shona Macleod - Consortium for Street Children, 21 Jun 2021

This overview considers the effect of the pandemic on street-connected children, meaning those who live or work on or have another strong connection to the street, and those who work with them. It draws on data gathered from members of the Consortium for Street Children’s network of over 180 community organisations, national and international non-governmental organisations, researchers, advocates and on-the-ground practitioners working in 135 countries.

Prevalence, incidence and chronicity of child abuse among orphaned, separated, and street-connected children and adolescents in western Kenya: What is the impact of care environment?

Samuel Ayaya, Allison DeLong, Lonnie Embleton, David Ayuku, Edwin Sang, Joseph Hogan, Allan Kamanda, Lukoye Atwoli, Dominic Makori, Mary A. Ott, Caroline Ombok, Paula Braitstein - Child Abuse & Neglect, 21 Jan 2021

The two primary objectives of this study were 1) to compare recent child abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) between orphaned and separated children and adolescents’ (OSCA) living in institutional environments and those in family-based care; and 2) to understand how recent child abuse among street-connected children and youth compared to these other vulnerable youth populations.

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Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2021

This report draws on data from 148 countries and explores issues of particular relevance in the current crisis, including the impact of socio-economic factors, drivers of child trafficking and trafficking for forced labour, and traffickers’ use of the internet.

Webinar Recording: Integration and Reintegration of Children on the Move

Family for Every Child, 25 Nov 2020

This webinar heard from three of Family for Every Child's member organisations about their programmes to both integrate and reintegrate children on the move.

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Protected! Podcast Episode 10: Supporting Children on the Street During Lockdown

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, 14 Oct 2020

In this podcast episode, Pramila Manandhar, media officer for CWIN in Nepal, shares her experiences in supporting children living and working on the street during lockdown.

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Characterizing street-connected children and youths’ social and health inequities in Kenya: a qualitative study

L. Embleton, P. Shah, A. Gayapersad, R. Kiptui, D. Ayuku & P. Braitstein - International Journal for Equity in Health, 28 Aug 2020

This study sought to identify and understand how street-connected children and youth (SCY)’s social and health inequities in Kenya are produced, maintained, and shaped by structural and social determinants of health using the WHO conceptual framework on social determinants of health (SDH) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) General Comment no. 17.