ancient cities

protectors on the street, and they sometimes beg at
traffic lights and in shopping areas, or work at
food stalls or solicit for sex. Street boys and girls
are often sexually active from a young age, either
for pleasure- or income-seeking reasons. This makes
them a high-risk group vulnerable to sexually transmitted
diseases and HIV/AIDS.
Street children are not one homogeneous group,
and it is very hard to describe a typical street child.
This is because they constitute a diverse population
in thousands of cities worldwide and are
involved in a wide range of income- and pleasureseeking
activities. It is important, however, not to
assume that all street children are homeless.
UNICEF categorizes street children into different
groups, usually by degree of family contact. For
example, there are those children who go to school
and work on the street for part of the day but who
live at home and have continual family contact.
There are others who are no longer in school and
spend all their days on the streets, looking for
money in various ways, but who still go home at
night. Sometimes, however, they stay on the street
at night with their friends. This may be because
they are too frightened to go home as they face the
possibility of violence or abuse from their parents
for being unsuccessful in getting their “target”
money when working. Alternatively they may
become involved with the street child social world
or subculture, eventually moving away from home
altogether. These children are sometimes known as
“real” street children as they are essentially homeless,
and live, work, and spend the majority of their
time on the streets and have very little if any contact
with their families. There are also street children
who live on the streets with their families.
Causal Factors
Street children are mostly found in urban areas,
and rapid urbanization is one factor that has contributed
to their prevalence. Other reasons given
for the increasing numbers of street children globally
are the growing gaps between rich and poor,
poverty, the influence of consumerism, conflict,
famine, natural disasters, family breakdowns, and
the increase of domestic violence.
Although street children are not easily defined,
they are often stereotyped by the press, NGOs, or
the government in the countries where they live. The
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stereotyping of street children is one of the biggest
obstacles to understanding them. A common fallacy,
for example, is that street children are those who are
orphaned or who are abandoned by their neglectful
parents, or that they are children who are organized
or pressed by adults to beg or commit crime.
In reality children start to work and live on the
streets for a variety of reasons, and there are very
few children who have been orphaned, abandoned,
or forced into crime. Many start working on the
streets because of cultural expectations that they
should contribute to the family income. It is well
acknowledged that the concept of childhood is
socially constructed and a culturally and historically
specific institution. Changing notions of
childhood relate to the global capitalist economy
and the subsequent ways in which the elite of different
countries have been influenced by the export
of what is perceived to be a modern childhood,
embedded within the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child. However, not all cultures or
families adhere to this construction of what a
proper childhood should be, and parents often find
it necessary for their children to work on the
streets to supplement the family income.
Further, economic stagnation compounded by
foreign debt problems in much of the developing
world has placed impossible strains on families
and individuals who migrate to the cities in order
to survive. These families often live in slums or
shantytowns and require their children to go out
and work. Other children end up on the streets by
their own volition, as a result of poverty, parental
neglect, physical or verbal abuse, or because of
unsympathetic stepparents. Still others are attracted
to the city lights and street culture. Leaving home,
therefore, is often an active choice, and it is necessary
to emphasize the agency of children choosing
the street as home and the reasons they do so.
Responses
Because of the stereotyping of street children the
response to their existence is almost universal. In
the media they are almost always portrayed in
overly simplistic terms, either as helpless abandoned
victims who have no agency at all and need
“saving” from the streets, or as social pariahs,
blotting the city landscape. The reason for these
extreme reactions to street children is because in