STREET CHILDREN

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Who Are Street Children

The term street children refers to children for whom the street more than their family has become their real home. It includes children who might not necessarily be homeless or without families, but who live in situations where there is no protection, supervision, or direction from responsible adults.

Life On The Street


Though the majority of the street children manage to earn or scavenge their daily food , they are denied the basics of survival, all street children and ragpickers are:
  • Abused and exploited.
  • Deprived: lacking job, money, food and shelter, they are forced into begging, thieving, drug peddling, pimping, and prostitution.
  • Regarded as juvenile delinquents and antisocial elements, they are often falsely accused of crimes and sent to secure homes of correction, or worse, put into adult prisons
  • Engaged in gambling, a popular pastime on the street.
  • Denied education.
  • Cut off from parental influence and guidance.

Most importantly, the children on the streets remain deprived of their basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and the security of family love and a home. With no adult to care for them, these children have no role model for guidance, surviving and fending for themselves and coping with all the problems of the local community, way before they have developed the physical and emotional maturity this demands.

Most street children and ragpickers suffer from diseases like scabies; infestation of lice; chronic dysentery; worms; TB; epilepsy, lung, ear, dental, nose and throat infections; chronic cuts; unhealed abrasions and some, sexually transmitted diseases, all these are caused by extreme poverty, exploitation, malnutrition and unhygienic surroundings in which the children are forced live.

In a recent survey it was estimated that there are about 70,000 ragpickers in Bangalore city (50% of these Ragpickers are children) and 65,000 street children living in extreme physical and spiritual poverty. They live on the streets, railway platforms, and the unhygienic disease-infested slums in and around Bangalore city, where 750 slum areas have already been identified.

These children are shunned by society as they are in rags, filthy, infested and smell badly, they are very suspicious of everyone, having known only hard knocks, and cannot believe that anyone can give them unconditional love. They are afraid of the police and give false names if arrested, when they are arrested they are put in “cooler rooms”, where many are sexually assaulted, and abused, so even if a child should have the chance to return home they would be too ashamed to do so.%

Society,s Atitude Towards Street Childern And Rag Pickers

Society, as a whole, regards these children as antisocial elements, an embarrassment to the community, and unfit to live. However their useful contribution to society and ecology is little understood and generally ignored. The waste collected by these children is recycled and produces 25% of the writing paper, the packing materials, egg trays, economical plastic and metal household items, etc., used in our homes. This benefits society and world ecology enormously by the production of cheaper household goods, and the slowing down of the destruction of the already threatened rain forests. It also helps to prevent the mountains of putrefying waste materials from building up in city centers. The rag pickers valuable contribution to society should not be ignored and taken for granted.