Street Children in Agra and India

Who is a 'street child'?

There is no international agreement on the definition of ‘street children’, and the label of ‘street children’ is increasingly recognized by sociologists and anthropologists to be a socially constructed category that in reality does not form a clearly defined, homogeneous population or phenomenon.

UNICEF developed the earliest definitions and categories of street children:

Children of the street

(street-living children), who sleep in public spaces, without their families

Children on the street

(street-working children), who work on the streets during the day and return to their family home to sleep

Street-family children

who live with their family on the street .

How many are there?

Estimating numbers of ‘street children’ is fraught with difficulties. In 1989, UNICEF estimated 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. 14 years later UNICEF reported: ‘The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million’. And even more recently: ‘The exact number of street children is impossible to quantify, but the figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions across the world. It is likely that the numbers are increasing’.

What about girls ?

In many cultures, there is much greater pressure for girls to stay at home than boys. Research shows that girls will put up with abuse at home for longer than boys but that once girls make the decision to leave home, the rupture is more permanent than for boys. Girls are also less visible on the streets as they are often forced or lured into brothels and prostitution.

What about their rights?

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) applies to all children under the age of 18, including children living and working on the street. Although street children’s rights are continually violated or overlooked, they are in ever greater need to have their rights realised. 
A street environment is an extremely dangerous place to be for any child, and probably no other environment contributes more to potential violations of the UNCRC than a childhood and youth spent outside the institutional framework of family, community and school.

What do governments do to help street children?

 The UNCRC sets out a framework for protection that emphasises the family and community as having the main responsibility of caring for children (Art. 5 and 18). The role of the state is to support and enable families and communities to fulfil this role. However, it is an unfortunate fact that in many cases families and communities are not able to be protective and nurturing. In these cases, as for children living on the streets, the state then takes on a greater responsibility to fill the gap (Art. 20: “A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State”).

Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Although many governments try to address the issue of street children there is a real lack of long-term, sustainable and holistic approaches implemented by governments. This is partly due to lack of resources and interest, or a failure to understand how to deal with the issue in a positive way which does not violate the rights of street children.