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2.2 Street children phenomenon
The scenario is typical and painstakingly well known; a busy street lined with different
establishments and shops that display the latest electronic equipment and the latest
fashion, well-dressed individual going in and out, the sound of vehicles speeding by,
expensive vehicles, and the flash of neon lights. Every night, cities and towns come alive
and urban life seems to reach its peak.
However, a typical scenario is also observable in the street. Some of these children sell
cigarettes, flowers, and even lottery tickets while some of these children are just loitering
and some of them are asleep in the arcades of the city. As the night goes by, street
children are seen sniffing solvents, smoking, gambling, and taking up with both locals
and foreigners for a night of big money. This means taking on odd jobs in order to earn
some money to ease their hunger or to give to their family who are starving to death
(Childhope, 1993).
These street children, which are known to be the offspring of this generation’s complex
urban realities all over the world signifies one of the global family’s most severe, urgent
and rampantly growing social dilemma. Consequently, there is no country and practically
no city or town can escape the occurrence of the street children. In some parts of the
globe, such occurrence is a daily occurrence. As mentioned earlier, this social dilemma
has grown in the last decades at an alarming and distressing rate throughout Africa and
Asia.
In contrast to popular belief, the so-called street children are noted to have a function in
the society. The presence of street children in nation’s functions is to reaffirm each
individual’s pre-existing intolerance and injustice regarding family, street crime,
substance abuse, and birth control. Usually, such phenomenon reaffirms ideas regarding
the incorrigibility of a child or his or her inherent resilience. The presence of this
phenomenon contributes to the confirmation of theological assumptions of corruption, sin
and violence, aggressions and other evils. Herein, most of the studies assumed that the
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