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Cambodian children working and/or living with their families on the streets facing the
same potential risks. To overcome this definitional limitation, the 3-fold definition of
street children developed by UNICEF is applied, distinguishing between: Street Living
Children (SLC), Street Working Children (SWC) and Children of Street Living Families
(SLF):
Street Living Children:
‘Children/youth who have cut ties with their families and live alone on the streets’
Street Working Children:
‘Children/youth who spend all or most of their time working on the streets to provide
an income for their families or for themselves, but who return to a caregivers home at
night’
Children of Street Living Families:
‘Children who live with their family on the streets’
The 3-fold definition of street children applied in the CSCN study is thus ‘not based
on the social or economic backgrounds of the children, or the types of activities they
perform (which are mostly viewed as survival behaviours for living), but rather on the
physical contact with the street setting as compared to their contact with their families’ 8 .
Another important aspect to consider when defining the CSCN target group is age. The
term Street Children is usually applied to children under the age of 18. However, given
the age distri-bution of the children/youth the CSCN members target through various
outreach activities, it has been necessary to expand the definition to the age group from
0-24 years. In order not to be confused with the age-terminology adopted by most other
studies on street children, the term Street Children/Youth will henceforth be applied
referring to the 0-24 year olds 9 .
Methodologically, applying such a broad definition on street children/youth both in terms
of categories and the age span inevitably impacts on the outcome of both the snapshot
and questionnaire survey. This is particularly true regarding the snapshot survey, as
CSCN
10 CSCN Street Children Profile 2009