Street children facts for kids

Street children are children who work or live on the streets. They may live permanently on the streets with or without their families because they have no home. They may be children who work on the streets by doing errands or selling items. Street children may spend a lot of time in the streets, but sleep at home.

According to the European Federation for Street Children, “They are an extremely vulnerable group of children living in most severe situations well beyond the usual notion of poverty; they face a gross violation of their human rights, such as violence, chemical addictions and various other human right violations".

Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) asserts that “State parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.” Homelessness denies each one of those rights. According to an Inter-NGO Program on street children and youth, a street child is “any girl or boy who has not reached adulthood, for whom the street (in the widest sense of the word, including unoccupied dwellings, wasteland, etc.) has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, directed, and supervised by responsible adults.”

Images for kids

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  An Afghan street boy photographed in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan (June 2003).

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  A street child in Bangladesh

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  Romanian ration card, 1989. The forced natalist policy of Nicolae Ceauşescu coupled with poverty led families unable to cope

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  Children Underground a 2001 documentary film directed by Edet Belzberg, depectinng street children in Romania

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  Children sleeping in Mulberry Street, New York City, 1890 (Jacob Riis photo)

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  Two street children in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

See also

In Spanish: Niños de la calle para niños