| The actual term street children is a wide term
which can be used to describe homeless children, children
who work in the streets, or who do not have contact
with their family. The number of ‘street children’ worldwide
is unknown, simply due to the fact that it is next to
impossible to count the population as they tend to move
about; estimates of the number of street children are
as follows:
Kenya – 250,000
Ethiopia – 150,000
Zimbabwe – 12,000
Bangladesh – 445,226
Nepal – 30,000
India – 11 million
(Taken from http://www.streetchildren.org.uk/faq/;
11th April 2006)
There are more boys living on the street than girls,
in the likes of India and Pakistan, young boys can be
found working at bus shelters, often these young children
are used for the sexual pleasure of adults that pass
through these bus shelters every day. This is not to
say that there are no girls on the street, the point
remains that the girls who end up on the street are
often made to work in brothels.
There are many tales about street children, their
way of life, the way they are treated, what they eat,
how they make money, the underlying point however remains
the same, children should NOT have to live like this.
In some parts of the world children live in sewers,
instead of responding to the problem, these sewers are
set a light in an attempt to kill these children. The
harsh reality is that people who are mean to be protecting
these children are in many cases the ones who will abuse
them; they take advantage of their power and use children
for sexual pleasure, money, or simply torture them because
they can. There have been tales of authority figures
‘setting’ children up by arresting them and then charging
them bail money.
It should be noted however that these children
do not simply cry for help, instead they show immense
courage and resilience to the way they are forced to
live, what us here in the UK would perceive to be an
impossible way of life, is these children’s everyday
reality.
In an ideal world we could help every child who is being
forced to live in such a manner, however we can only
do little to help. If you provide these children with
clothes, guaranteed someone will take them off them
and sell them, or they may in fact sell them themselves.
If you give these children money, go back a few hours
later and that money will have disappeared. What we
can give these children is education, so that they can
learn new skills, so they can make something good for
themselves and we can only wish and pray that this will
lead to them leaving the harsh street life behind.
Article by Sharonjit Rai 
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