VULNERABLE CHILDREN

Street children are those who spend their lives on the streets, carrying out all their daily activities and earning a livelihood from working on the streets. Sometimes, family members arrive in the city together; others, children leave their families behind and try to start a new life by themselves; yet others, they have been abandoned or are orphans.

Having no access to personal hygiene, nutrition and health facilities, they are vulnerable to malnutrition, hunger and dreadful diseases that are aggravated by their precarious living circumstances.

Most of the children living on the streets are physically and emotionally worn down by the need to support themselves at such a young age. They lack a secure environment, a place they can call their own, where basic facilities are provided along with the presence of caring and protective adults, all of which would help children develop and gain the self-confidence to be a part of mainstream society as wholly integrated individuals.

Homeless street children share the common condition of being “out of place”, not only in street environments, but also in surroundings typically considered appropriate for children, such as home, school, and recreational settings. This “out-of-place” condition also tends to place these children outside the sphere of the rules and regulations set up by society to protect them.

Street children have, as compared with the rest of children, less chances than most other children of getting formal schooling, be it on account of their mobility, lack of birth certificates or of a permanent address, or lack of adults to enroll them in school.

Street-living children are exposed to certain health risks, as they have greater difficulty accessing health services than most poor urban children. It can be seen that street children have a higher risk of suffering malnutrition or psychological illnesses, chronic skin infections, sexually-transmitted diseases or AIDS, having accidents in the streets, enduring high levels of contamination, abusive sexual relationships and the risk of unwanted pregnancies.

A more global term which is becoming more common among organizations and entities, and which encompasses street children is ‘Vulnerable Children’. Without guidance and protection, these children run the risk of being victims of violence, exploitation, child trafficking, discrimination and other forms of abuse.

Following are some examples of vulnerable children:

- Street children.
- Children of construction workers who move from one construction site to another and build settlements at each new place.
- Children who work or beg in order to support themselves and their families.
- Children who are trafficked with and who sometimes remain in slavery or semi-slavery conditions.
- Children with serious or hereditary illnesses, or caused by their precarious living conditions.
- Children who are at odds with the law.

After all, streets are the main, almost the only, stage where children’s' social interactions take place, whether they are positive or negative. The fact that they live there does not mean that they are people without rights. In other words, we must understand and describe their issues from the children's viewpoint; from their own world vision, not just from ours.

This will be the best way for our description to coincide with the children's particular course of development, the specific cultural and social features of their lives and their personal background. In order to achieve this, we must listen to their voices – the voices of street children.

We will then be able to go from using an empty and anonymous term, to speaking about concrete facts concerning the people who, in spite being children, live on the streets. In this manner, we will also be able to understand the term 'street children' and the nature of its semantic field, varied and changeable in meaning, just like the children themselves.