CHILD Protection & Rights > Child Protection IssueS.

What do Street Children face?

Children who work on the street may become involved in scavenging, begging, hawking, prostitution or theft to aid their basic survival.
Popular images of street children portray them as vulnerable to abuse, at risk of poor health, exploited by older children or adults, and also very often as criminals, victims, or as free spirits.

Street children throughout the world are exposed to economic, health and social problems: poverty, lack of education, medical care, risk of AIDS or substance abuse. They are exposed to physical or sexual abuse, prostitution. They are also frequently detained arbitrarily simply because they are homeless, or criminally charged with vague offences such as loitering, vagrancy, or petty theft.

Street children also make up a large proportion of the children who enter criminal justice systems and are committed finally to correctional institutions (prisons) that are euphemistically called schools, often without due process. Few advocates speak up for these children, and few street children have family members or concerned individuals willing and able to intervene on their behalf.

Situation in India

UNICEF estimated 11 million street children in India in 1994, which is considered to be conservative. It also estimated 100,000 - 125,000 street children each in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi, with 45,000 in Bangalore. An another official figure available from a 1997 report of the DWCD, Ministry of HRD, Government of India stated that 11 million children lived on the street at that time, of which 420,000 lived in the six metropolitan cities of the country. But these data are 8-12 years old and almost no effort has been made to update them.
In the absence of adequate housing and infrastructures in the cities, these children are often exposed to hunger and malnutrition, lack of health care and education, abuse, exploitation, variety of deprivation and harassment from the police.
Among these children, some come to urban centers with their families as seasonal migrants to escape the poverty and increasing case of starvation in the rural areas. They belong also to families who were forcibly evicted from their homes and lands without adequate rehabilitation as a result of large development projects.
Many come alone to cities in search of a livelihood, in an attempt to escape poverty and caste discrimination. A significant number of children find also themselves on streets in an attempt to escape from violent and abusive home conditions or are lured with promises by traffickers.