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from the cultural disorientation of rural migrants experience or the extreme material
deprivation of the urban slum, the family's role as a protective and socializing force for
children is diminished; for many older boys in particular, life in the streets becomes an
adaptation to unbearable family conditions (Connolly 1990).
Consistent with earlier findings, the Honduran children also tend to come from large,
disorganized family backgrounds. About five percent of the children of the streets and
two percent of the market children are orphans; among the remainder, the average
number of other persons living in the child's nuclear household is five point three. Very
few of the parents of these children are currently married (15% of the market kids; only
8% of the street kids), most are separated or divorced (45% of the total sample), while
others were never married in the first place (32%).
Family disorganization and estrangement are, of course, dramatically higher for the true
abandoned street children than for the market children. Among the latter, case workers
have assessed 78% as having good to excellent relations with their families; among the
former, this is true of only 32%. Three-quarters of the children of the street but only a
fifth of the market children exhibit symptoms of family dysfunction. Nearly nine in ten of
the market children (86%) live with one or both of their parents. Among children of the
street, barely a third lives with a parent and most (57%) of them live and sleeps, literally,
in the streets of the city.
Two-thirds of the market kids have someone who takes care of and looks after them
during the days (normally the mother, of course). This is true of only 13% of the children
of the street, and in most cases (Nine of 14); the caretaker is a brother or sister who is
also in the streets. About half the market children attend school (many are too young to
do so) while 90% of the abandoned street children do not. Of those who have ever
received formal schooling, almost all have completed three or fewer years. A bare
majority (57%) can read and write at some level; the remainder cannot. Very few of these
children (either category) are recent arrivals in fact, 82% have been in the streets for more
than a year.
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