Karen Coen Flynn - Yale University

African countries. The population of Tanzanian street children, in particular, alsooriginated in this period and is estimated to have doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 between1989 and 1993 alone (Lugalla 1995: Rajani 1993).Living in cities throughout the world, such “homeless” or “street” children are notonly the subject of an extensive literature but widely recognized as comprising a vastlyheterogeneous, ill-defined group because these children survive in different cultural andenvironmental contexts, through wide-ranging activities, on fluctuating schedules, andunder the threat of varying degrees of violence. iv Some originate in cities while othersmigrate from the countryside. Some girls and boys are “throw aways” who wereinvoluntarily evicted from home by their “caregivers;” others are “voluntary” runawaysoften pushed out by dire poverty and hunger, a lack of schooling opportunities and/orabuse.Nine girls (see Figure 1) between the ages of 11 and 15 years and 19 boys (seeFigure 2) ranging from 5 to 16 years participated in my research. v I identified “streetchildren” as those younger than 18 years of age who lived, slept, and foraged for foodunaccompanied by any adult kin. vi Try as I might to refine it, my definition proved asproblematic as others’ because most of the children did not know their age, some hadcontact with relatives, and at least one girl described herself as being “married” to a streetman. Moreover some children slept on the “streets” (at the central bus terminal, underbridges or against shop doorways), while others sought refuge at “shelters” (on theground at the informal roadside cafes where they worked, in alleys near apartments inwhich they washed floors, or on the cement veranda at the local street-children’s center).Further complicating my definitional challenges was that none of the 28 children in5