Reasons Why Street Children Exist

Why do street children exist? That is the question playing in my mind. Who is to be blame for this? What’s the effect of this to the society we’re living? Many factors and aspects could be the reason of their existence. “Street children is a word which can be used with different kinds of children. They can 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. They can also live permanently on the streets with or without their families because they have no home. A definition of Street children is children who work or live on the streets. Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) asserts that “States 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.””1 Being street children doesn’t really mean that you don’t have a house.

Most of them have their houses, but doesn’t have a home, home that can prevent them from their wrong turns. Most of them don’t have a home, that’s why they prefer staying on the street. “WHY ARE STREET CHILDREN TREATED SO POORLY IN THE PHILIPPINES? – Generally, street children have refused to remain in neglected, hidden away areas of the city. We found that the majority of street children had staked out the most beautified areas of the city – squares, major highways, outside shopping centre’s, markets, fountains, tourist attractions, and near restaurants. These are areas of the city that are rich in resources: people to beg from, tourists to sell small items to, restaurants that hand out free food, grass to sleep on, fountains to wash in, and plenty of areas to play.

But they are also areas of the city that the wealthier residents of the city would prefer to claim as their own – and to keep ‘beautiful’. This situation has given rise to many uncomfortable encounters between the rich and poor. While walking along the streets or sitting in a restaurant, you’re often approached by snotty-nosed, barefooted, half-naked street children asking for food. Others can be seen tapping on tinted car windows, asking for money. Walking down the steps to the train station, you see mothers holding out malnourished babies. And in the parks or outside the local 7/11, street children can be found sniffing rugby (a brand of glue). This seems to have incubated a lot of distrust, frustration, and hostility among the general public towards street children. Street children are often called ‘yagit’ by the general public – which translates as ‘rubbish on the street’.”

Pre-marital sex and other lawful acts may be the usual scenario of being street children, because in the street, there are so many people that can influence each individual. Premarital sex is generally defined as sex before marriage, but the definition raises various questions. Premarital sex originally referred to sexual activity with a partner before marriage in early adulthood. (Sex, and Society Volume 3, p.663) It is one of the reasons of the existence of the street children. Next in line is the poverty here in our country. Families that can’t afford to have their houses and can’t provide their needs, they rely their source of income on the streets.