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1. 貧民街の子供

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2013/03/06 01:31:03」(JST)

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An Afghan street boy smiles for the camera in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan (June 2003).

Street child is a term for a child experiencing homelessness and who primarily resides in the streets of a city. The exact definition of a street child is debatable due to the lack of precise categories. The term has largely been used in reference to children who live entirely in public spaces, without adult supervision or care. Street children are often subject to abuse, neglect, exploitation, or, in extreme cases, murder by "clean-up squads" that have been hired by local businesses or police. In Western societies, such children are commonly treated as homeless children, rather than criminals or solicitors.

Definitions

Street child in Bangladesh

"Street children" is increasingly recognized by sociologists and anthropologists to be a socially-constructed category that does not actually form a clearly-defined, homogeneous population, or phenomenon (Glauser, 1990; Ennew, 2000; Moura, 2002). "Street children" covers children in such a wide variety of circumstances and with a wide variety of characteristics that policymakers and service providers find it difficult to describe and target such a sub-population. Individual girls and boys of all ages are found living and working in public spaces, and are visible in the great majority of the world’s urban centers.

The definition of "street children" is contested, but many practitioners and policymakers use UNICEF’s concept of boys and girls, aged under eighteen years, for whom "the street" (including unoccupied dwellings and wasteland) has become home and/or their source of livelihood, and who are inadequately protected or supervised (Black, 1993).

Statistics and distribution

Homeless children in the United States The number of homeless children reached record highs in 2011, 2012, and 2013 at about three times their number in 1983.

Street children can be found in a large majority of the world's cities, with the phenomenon more prevalent in densely-populated urban hubs of developing or economically unstable countries, such as India, China, Russia, and countries in Africa. According to a report from the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom (UK)-based consortium of related NGOs, UNICEF estimated that 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. Fourteen years later, UNICEF similarly reported, "The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million" (UNICEF, 2002: 37). More recently the organization added, "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" (UNICEF, 2005: 40-41). The 100 million figure is still commonly cited, but has no basis in fact (see Ennew and Milne, 1989; Hecht, 1998; Green, 1998). Similarly, it is debatable whether numbers of street children are growing globally, or whether it is the awareness of street children within societies that has grown.

History

The phenomenon of street children has been documented as far back as 1848. Alan Ball, in the introduction to his book on the history of abandoned children, And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918-1930, states:

Orphaned and abandoned children have been a source of misery from earliest times. They apparently accounted for most of the boy prostitutes in Augustan Rome and, a few centuries later, moved a church council of 442 in southern Gaul to declare: “Concerning abandoned children: there is general complaint that they are nowadays exposed more to dogs than to kindness.” In Tsarist Russia, seventeenth-century sources described destitute youths roaming the streets, and the phenomenon survived every attempt at eradication thereafter. Long before the Russian Revolution, the term besprizornye had gained wide currency.

In 1848, Lord Ashley referred to more than 30,000 "naked, filthy, roaming lawless and deserted children" in and around London, UK.

Children sleeping in Mulberry Street - Jacob Riis photo New York, United States of America (1890)

By 1922 there were at least seven million homeless children in Russia due to the devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War. Abandoned children formed gangs, created their own argot, and engaged in petty theft and prostitution.

Causes

The causes of this phenomenon are varied, but are often related to domestic, economic, or social disruption; including, but not limited to, poverty, breakdown of homes and/or families, political unrest, or acculturation. Several reasons why children end up on the streets are caused by cultural instances. For example, some children in parts of Congo and Uganda are made to leave their family because they are suspected to be witches bringing bad luck upon their family. In Afghanistan, young girls who preform "honor crimes" like adultery (which may include rape or sexual abuse) or refusing an arranged marriage. [[2]]

By country

Russia

Russia consists of an estimated two million street children, while one in four crimes involves underage individuals.^{[citation needed]} Officially, the number of Russian children without supervision is more than 700,000. However, experts believe the real figure has since risen to between two and four million.

China

The number of China's urban street children population continues to grow, with the Ministry of Civil Affairs estimating the number at 150,000.^{[citation needed]}

India

Main article: Street children in India

Two street children in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

India is home to 400,000 - 800,000 street children. The Republic of India is the seventh largest and second-most populated country in the world. Due to the acceleration in economic growth, an economic rift has appeared, with twenty-three per cent of the population living below the poverty line.^{[citation needed]} Owing to unemployment, increasing rural-urban migration, the attraction of city life, and a lack of political will, India has developed one of the largest child labor forces in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Vietnam

According to data. The Street Educators’ Club, the number of street children in Vietnam has shrunk from 21,000 in 2003 to 8,000 in 2007. The number dropped from 1,507 to 113 in Hanoi and from 8,507 to 794 in Ho Chi Minh City.^{[citation needed]} There are currently almost 400 humanitarian organizations and international non-governmental organizations providing help to about 15,000 Vietnamese children.

Pakistan

The number of street children in Pakistan is estimated to be between 1.2 million and 1.5 million, meaning that the country has one of the world's largest street children populations. There is a wide gap in living standards between the upper and lower classes, giving rise to a large segment of the population, consisting of young children, that lives in poverty.^{[citation needed]} Past efforts have been initiated by UNICEF and other NGOs to assist children in need through various programs and rehabilitation centers; however, the situation remains as a prominent socio-economic issue in Pakistan in the 21st century.

Romania

A 2000 report from the Council of Europe estimated that there were approximately 1,000 street children in the city of Bucharest. The prevalence of street children has led to a burgeoning sex tourism business in Romania; although efforts have been made to decrease the number of street children in the country.

Brazil

The Brazilian government estimates that the number of children and adolescents who work or sleep on the streets is approximately 23,973^{[citation needed]}, based on results from the national census mandated by the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency (SDH) and the Institute for Sustainable Development (Idesp).

The Philippines

Main article: Street children in the Philippines

According to the 1998 report, "Situation of the Youth in the Philippines", there are about 1.5 million street children in the Philippines. Street children as young as ten years old can be imprisoned alongside adults under the Vagrancy Act; in past cases, physical and sexual abuse have occurred as a result of this legislation.

Latin America

Main article: Street Children in Latin America

According to some estimates, there are forty million street children in Latin America, most of whom work on the streets. There are two categories of street children in Latin America: home-based and street-based. Home-based children have homes and families to return to, while street-based children do not. A majority of street children in Latin America are home-based.

Turkey

Between 10,000 and 12,000 street children are estimated. Mainly in İstanbul, with most present in the eastern part of the country. Diyarbakır is one of the eastern cities where most of Turkey's remaining street children live.

Government and non-government responses

Responses by governments

While some governments have implemented programs to deal with street children, the general solution involves placing the children into orphanages, juvenile homes, or correctional institutions. Efforts have been made by various governments to support or partner with non-government organizations.

NGO responses

Non-government organizations employ a wide variety of strategies to address the needs and rights of street children. Advocacy groups have campaigned for the rights of homeless children, as well as for amendments to be made to the institutional treatment of vulnerable children.^{[citation needed]} An example of such campaign work is the "The Street Children‘s Day", launched by Jugend Eine Welt on January 31, 2009 to highlight the situation of street children. The "Street Children's Day" has been commemorated every year since its inception in 2009.

In fiction

Horatio Alger's book, Tattered Tom; or, The Story of a Street Arab (1871), is an early example of the appearance of street children in literature. The book follows the tale of a homeless girl who lives by her wits on the streets of New York, US. Other examples from popular fiction include "Kim", from Kipling's novel of the same name; the character of Kim is a street child in colonial India. Also, "Gavroche", in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Fagin's crew of child pickpockets in Oliver Twist, A similar group of child thieves in Funke's "The Thief Lord", and Sherlock Holmes' "Baker Street Irregulars" are other notable examples of the presence of street children in popular works of literature.

See also

• Benposta
• Casa Alianza
• Covenant House
• Friends International
• Homelessness
• Kotjebi
• Orphan
• Relational care
• Runaway youth
• Street children in the Philippines
• Waif

References

External links

• The Hope Foundation: Offering protection, education and healthcare to street children in Kolkata, India
• Street Children in Gimbi, Ethiopia, including documentary of a specific boy
• Streetconnect.org: A clearing house of information for and about homeless youth
• Hummingbird: a documentary about two NGOs in Brazil that work with street kids
• The Goodman Project: A foundation set up to help the street kids in India and Asia
• Street Children: Article on the Children's Rights Portal
• Street Children's Day - 31 January (in German): Day to highlight the situation of these children and young people.

Related Links

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gut·ter·snipe (gŭt′ər-snīp′) n. 1. A street urchin. 2. A person of the lowest class. guttersnipe (ˈɡʌtəˌsnaɪp) n 1. a child who spends most of his time in the streets, esp in a slum area 2. a person regarded as having the behaviour ...

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