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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Building the Resilience of Street Children and Youths in Cameroon

Walters Mudoh Sanji - Resilience and the Re-integration of Street Children and Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, 30 Sep 2018

This chapter from the book Resilience and the Re-integration of Street Children and Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa is comprised of two studies. The first study provides an analysis of the psychological situation of street children and youth in Yaoundé and Douala, while the second one deals with resilience building within a rehabilitation home.

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Sexual and physical abuse and its determinants among street children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2016

Ayana Chimdessa & Amsale Cheire - BMC Pediatrics, 19 Sep 2018

The purpose of this study is to point out the experience of sexual and physical exploitation and its determinant factors among street children in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

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Adverse childhood experiences and adjustment: A longitudinal study of street-involved youth in Brazil

Marcela Raffaelli, Juliana Prates Santana, Normanda Araujo de Morais, Carlos J. Nieto, Silvia H. Koller - Child Abuse & Neglect, 28 Aug 2018

The current longitudinal study examined the prevalence, overlap, and impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in a sample of Brazilian children and adolescents who use city streets as spaces for socialization and survival (i.e., street-involved youth).

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Life Experiences of Children Living on Streets in Kenya: from the Pot into the Fire

Emily Chepngetich Sitienei & Jace Pillay - Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 20 Aug 2018

This qualitative study explored life experiences of children living on the streets in Eldoret, Kenya.

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Drug Abuse Among Street Children

Yahya Muhammed Bah - Mathews Journal of Case Reports, 27 Jul 2018

This study sought to determine the risk and prevalence of drug abuse among street children focusing on those in the car parks in the Gambia.

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Enumeration of Children Living on the Streets in Uganda Across Four Locations: Iganga, Jijna, Mbale, and Kampala

Retrak - Hope for Justice, 01 Jun 2018

The goal of this research project is to inform policy and practice in Uganda by providing an estimate of the number of children on the streets in Kampala, Jinja, Iganga and Mbale; insight into the characteristics of these children; and exploration of children’s perspectives of their engagement on the streets.

Child Welfare and Social Work: The Legal, Political and Social Contexts of Malaysia

Habibie Bte Hj Ibrahim, Norhamidah Jarimal - Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 01 Jun 2018

This paper is based on literature review on the legal, political and social context of Malaysia regarding child welfare and social work.

Community perceptions of home environments that lead children & youth to the street in semi-rural Kenya

Sarah Seidel, James Muciimi, James Chang, Stanley Gitari, Philip Keiser, Michael L. Goodman - Child Abuse & Neglect, 28 May 2018

For this study, forty men and women from five semi-rural villages in Meru County, Kenya participated in a Rapid Rural Appraisal to explore main and underlying reasons why children may be, or may feel, unwelcome in the home and thus migrate to the street.

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Community perceptions of home environments that lead children & youth to the street in semi-rural Kenya

Sarah Seidel, James Muciimi, James Chang, Stanley Gitari, Philip Keiser, Michael L. Goodman - Child Abuse & Neglect, 28 May 2018

This article explores main and underlying reasons for why children may be or may feel unwelcome in the home and thus migrate to the street.

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Health crises, social support, and caregiving practices among street children in Bangladesh

M.D. Hasan Reza, Julia R. Henly - Children and Youth Services Review, 07 Mar 2018

This study asked three primary questions: 1) What is the nature of crisis children encounter on the street? 2) What are the ranges of informal caregiving practices? 3) What social network characteristics facilitate or complicate caregiving?

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