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The
estimate most commonly quoted, by UNICEF and many
other agencies, is that there are 100-150 million
children who live or work on the streets of the
developing world. The most conservative academic
estimates place the number at 10 million for those
children who actually live and sleep on the streets.[1]
The projects sponsored by Arms of Love International
minister to these “hardcore” street children -- who
have no home, no family, and no place else to go --
and children who are at immediate risk of being in
this situation.
Street
children live in abandoned buildings, back alleys,
parks, garbage dumps, cemeteries, and other public
places. During the day, they will tend to
congregate in places with significant pedestrian
traffic, such as street corners, markets, bus
terminals, and ferry buildings. When they are young,
street children are often able to survive by begging
or selling trinkets. As they grow older, however,
people tend to have less compassion on them, and they
will typically resort to petty theft and
prostitution to survive.
For
these reasons, street children tend to be scorned by
others in the community and are frequently the victims
of physical abuse and violence. Such
violence may be perpetrated by adults in the
community, corrupt law enforcement, or other street
children. Violence initiated by adults, security
guards, and police officers may be prompted by
suspicion of crime, but on other occasions is without
cause or provocation.
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In Latin America, most street children are
addicted to inhalants. More than 95% of street
children in Latin America use drugs on a daily
basis, most commonly solvents or shoe glue.[2]
As a result, most street children develop an
intense drug addiction which causes
serious physiological damage.[3]
Street children are also sexually active. Their
deeply-felt longing to be loved, combined with the
lack of any guidance or family structure,
naturally leads to such activity. According to one
study, about 70% have one or two sexual partners
per day.[4]
As a result, a majority of street children
contract sexually transmitted diseases
and, in some instances, AIDS.[5]
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Boy inhaling shoe glue
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Street
children are the result of family
disintegration, the breakdown of the nuclear
family. Such disintegration results from a
combination of factors, including the death or
abandonment of one or both parents, physical and
sexual abuse, and economic stress due to extreme
poverty. Many street children are orphaned or
abandoned; other children come from abusive home
environments that cause the children to choose life on
the streets. In developing countries, governments
often lack the facilities to care for such children,
so they must learn to survive on their own. In many
cases, the children have already been working on the
streets in an effort to supplement their families’
income.
 A
unique and especially problematic set of issues face
adolescent street girls. It has been estimated that
80% of street girls turn to prostitution as a means
for survival, and contraceptives are rarely used.[6]
As this data suggests, pregnancies and
self-induced abortions are very common among
street girls.[7]
One researcher in Brazil concluded that 40% of
under-age prostitutes self-induce abortions “by the
most rudimentary methods”;[8]
others simply abandon their infants. Moreover, street
girls typically continue sniffing glue and using other
drugs while pregnant.[9]
This results in some babies being stillborn, while
other infants have serious birth defects. Street
girls often have additional emotional baggage as well,
stemming from their relationships with "pimps" or
"protectors," who often convince the girls that they
are the only ones who will really love them or protect
them.
In some
parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, most of
the children who live on the streets are engaged in
prostitution. However, even greater numbers of
children live in brothels, oftentimes against their
will. These children are often sold by their families
into prostitution or are kidnapped and coerced into
the sex industry.
A Tragic End
 Life
on the streets is more than just difficult - it can
also be fatal. Street children sometimes lose their
lives to violence on the streets or to their drug
addictions.
The
article at right recounts the murder of a 19-year-old
street youth, "Peluche," in Managua, Nicaragua. Early
in the morning, Peluche had tried to rob another
street youth. The potential victim pulled a gun, shot
Peluche, and killed him. Peluche's mother learned of
her son's death the next day when she was reading the
newspaper and saw this article - and the picture of
her son lying dead in the street.
Unfortunately, the killing of street children is not
an unusual occurrence. Another recent incident in
Managua occurred on September 26, 2000, when a
16-year-old street boy, Harold Jose Orozco, asked a
middle-aged couple for money for food. They refused
and walked away. Angry and hungry, the boy tried to
snatch a chain that the man was wearing around his
neck. The man, however, took out a gun and shot the
boy twice in the back before walking away and leaving
him to die.
Stealing
is wrong, but at the same time, children should not
have to steal in order to eat. Nor should children be
shot in the back for stealing. Yet this type of
occurrence is far too common in many countries. Street
children, because of the crimes they commit in order
to survive, are viewed by many people as nothing more
than a problem. Their deaths often go unnoticed, and
the murderers are seldom prosecuted.
The memory
of children like "Peluche" should forever remind us of
the tragic deaths suffered by so many street children.
But more than this, it should motivate us to work
harder and more diligently to reach other street
children who are still at risk - so that these
otherwise senseless deaths might find purpose in the
life we bring to others.
Intervention
The strategies developed to assist street children can
be summarized into four broad categories:[10]
-
 The
correctional approach views street children
as a matter for juvenile justice organizations and
houses street children in correctional facilities.
Public and criminal justice authorities often adopt
this approach.
- The
rehabilitative approach views street children
as the victims of abandonment, poverty, abuse, and
neglect. Organizations that adopt this approach try
to work on the child’s behalf and typically provide
housing, drug. rehabilitation, education, and
vocational training. Because of the expense of such
programs, however, they can only reach a limited
number of children.
-
Other organizations employ outreach strategies
which provide children with educational, counseling,
and advocacy services while they continue to live on
the streets. Although these strategies can impact
more children using fewer resources, this model
fails to address the physical and safety needs of
the children.
- The
preventive approach attempts to address the
underlying problem of child poverty. This approach
may include political advocacy, education, and day
care
The
projects sponsored by Arms of Love International focus
primarily on the “rehabilitative approach." Some
projects also incorporate "outreach strategies" and
the “preventive approach.” Children’s homes provide
for all of the children’s physical, emotional, and
spiritual needs within a loving family environment
away from the streets. Programs which provide
assistance to children living on the streets can be
the first step toward building relationships with the
children with the eventual result of bringing them
into a home environment. Education, health care, and
vocational training for other children at risk in the
community can help those children break the cycle of
poverty and avoid life on the streets.
Additional
reading relating to street children can be found at
the following links:
PANGEA, Street Children – Community Children, World
Resource Library:
http://pangaea.org/street_children/kids.htm
Jubilee Campaign, Protecting Children's Rights Index:
http://www.jubileecampaign.co.uk/news1.htm
Endnotes
[1]
Andy Butcher, Street Children at 35-36 (1996).
[2]
CEDIC, "Factores que propician la callejizacion de la
ninez guatemalteca," at 24 (Guatemala: CEDIC, 1993).
A Casa Alianza survey showed that 96.5% of the street
children surveyed used inhalants on a daily basis.
Casa Alianza, http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/street-children.
[3]
Nancy Leigh Tierney, Robbed of Humanity:
Lives of Guatemalan Street Children,
26 (1997).
[4]
Casa Alianza, http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/street-children.
[5]
According to one survey of 275 street children in
Guatemala, 53% of the children had contracted sexually
transmitted diseases from clients or other street
children. CEDIC at 33. In a different survey, 93%
admitted to having sexually transmitted diseases.
Casa Alianza, http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/street-children.
[6]
ChildHope, “Nuestros ninos, nuestra esperanza,”
Bulletin Nos. 9 and 10 at 6 (Guatemala: Jan. 1994).
In a 1991 study of street children in Guatemala, 25.1
percent (92.31 percent girls) reported more than four
sexual partners per day, and none used contraceptives.
Casa Alianza, http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/street-children.
[7]
Tobias Hecht, At Home in the Street: Street
Children of Northeast Brazil, 67 (1998).
[8]
Gilberto Dimenstein, “Little Girls of the Night,”
NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 1994.
[9]
Hecht at 67.
[10]
James A. Inciardi and Hilary L. Surratt, “Children in
the Streets of Brazil: Drug Use, Crime, Violence, and
HIV Risks,” Substance Use and Misuse (1997). |
