A child, according to the UN convention for the rights of the child, is anybody below the age of 18 years. This suggests that any single individual below 18 years is a child and should be dependent in his/her parents for development. However, this has not been so in a lot of countries for generation. Definitions of street children have varied from person to person, and from country to country depending on the kind of the perceptual lenses in which street children are see in their new environment. From my own view, the street child is any single individual below the age of 18 years, who is living independently on the street at his home to make ends meet, due to lack of parental care and societal neglect.
It is a choice of necessity. Streetism, could be a predominant source to breed and ignite a heterogeneous whole of social cankers in our world, if society does not go beyond paying lip-services to this threatening predicament. The children on the street are vulnerable to numerous risks including HIV/AIDS due to their nearly universal involvement in “survival sex” (prostitution). The danger has been disclosed in studies that show that frequency of sexual relations within the group of street children also implies that one HIV positive street child could pass the disease to a larger proportion of street children.
Streetism is a danger that undermines the potentials and developments of children. Certain negative values, behaviors and attitudinal changes from the already positive living priority formed at their tender age under the supervision of their parents. It is a liability to society in this era, when they are found without a true home for warmth, and without love and care for a sense of belonging. They are spotted at street corners, both during the day and the night struggling for survival by whatever means possible. Drug addiction, child labour and violence are other key products of streetism which adds to the crime wave and disturbs the peace of the globe.
Children do not deserve the right to be abandoned on the street. The street is void of parental care, protection, love warmth and safety and cannot be a home. “Street children” have become stigmatized by society; ironically their name suggests they were begotten by streets. Truthfully, we forget that these children on the streets are victims of circumstances. These children do not desire to leave their homes and live on the streets where their lives are constantly in danger. They are yearning for the help of all and to get back into sound and secure society.
It is the society that has neglected them and left them to their fate. Their desire is that, they also have that right to complete with equals of the schools but not to compete with equals of similar fate on the streets. They desire to get back home where Daddies and Mummies shout to them for breakfast, lunch and dinner but not where the order of the day is “the survival of the fittest.” They are not strong enough of this task.
Some young girls are sexually abused and others are also enticed into nasty relationships in exchange for meals, little presents and shelter. If society fails to act promptly to save these kids, there will follow serious results ranging from HIV infections to other perilous circumstances soon in this hopeful century. Every single individual owes a service to the street child. If we dare make a mistake in handling their issues, if we allow them to “swim their own swim”, if we dare say “each one for himself and God for us all” in their case, we will be found digging graves for ourselves. There are indications that, the future of the world, especially the developing countries, is black when pragmatic and drastic measures are not taken to rectify this social diversity of our ways. The unseen will be seen.
Written by: Ezekiel Kevin-Annam
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