Street children in Vietnam

According to data by 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. In the meantime the number of migrant children is increasing. This number is, however, unconfirmed owing to varying definitions of street children. Some experts mention several different categories of street children in Vietnam: "children who have run away from home or who have no home, and who sleep on the street; children who sleep on the street with their family or guardian; children who have a family or guardian and who usually sleep at home, but work on the streets; economic migrants who rent rooms with other working children; and bonded laborers".

There are almost 400 humanitarian organisations and international non-governmental organizations providing help for about 15,000 children, who live in especially difficult conditions.

Street children in Bucharest, Romania

A report of the Council of Europe of year 2000 estimated that there were approximately 1,000 street children in Bucharest, Romania. These children were homeless as a result of the policies of former Communist ruler Nicolae Ceauşescu, who forbade contraception in the hopes of increasing Romania's population. Many of these children are abandoned or run away from home because their parents are too poor to feed them.

Some Romanian street children are preyed on by sex tourists, mainly from Western Europe, and many can be seen inhaling aurolac (an aluminium-based paint traditionally used for painting a type of wood-burning stove) from plastic bags, the substance of choice for those of limited means.

Romania has made much progress, allowing the number of street children drop to low levels, which is lying at or below the European average. Given that socio-economic conditions continue to improve in Romania, the number of street children is expected to diminish.

Underlying causes

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world with a population of approximately 190 million people. The disparity between the rich and the poor in Brazilian society is one of the largest. The richest 1% of Brazil's population control 50% of its income. The poorest 50% of society live on just 10% of the country's wealth.
Street children are an urban problem which has roots in rural poverty, neglect and the enforced, even violent displacement of large numbers of people from the land.
This problem is accentuated by the fact that the urban population is becoming younger. In Latin America alone, projections for the year 2020 point to 300 million urban minors, 30% of whom will be extremely poor [Ref: Independent Commission on International Issues]. 78% of the Brazilian population live in cities and towns.
The persistent poverty, rapid industrialization and the burgeoning of urban shanty towns (favelas) generate massive social and economic upheaval. Profound poverty means that family disintegration, violence and break-up become more prevalent.

Death squads

Most of Brazil's street children expect to be killed before they are 18. Between 4 and 5 adolescents are murdered daily and every 12 minutes a child is beaten. Conservative figures put the number at 2 killings every day.
There are reports that some children have been executed and/or mutilated. In July 1993, eight children and adolescents were killed in a shooting near the Candelária Church in Rio de Janeiro. This event was widely publicised around the world, and the routine killing of street children in Brazil was harshly criticised. As a result, the death squads moved underground. However, corrupt officials are still reputed to be involved - In São Paulo, 20% of homicides committed by the police in the first months of 1999 were against minors.

Street children in Russia

In Russia, street children usually find a home in underground pipe and cable collectors during the harsh winter. These underground homes offer space, shelter and most importantly of all, heat from hot water and central heating pipes.
Russia has 1 million street children, and one in four crimes involves underage youths. Officially, the number of children without supervision is more than 700,000. However, experts believe the real figure has long been between 2 and 4 million.

NGO responses

Non-government organizations employ a wide variety of strategies to address the needs and rights of street children. These may be categorized as follows:

• Advocacy - through media and government contacts agencies may press for the rights of street children to be respected.
• Preventive - programs that work to prevent children from taking to the streets, through family and community support and education.

• Institutional
  • residential rehabilitation programs - some agencies provide an environment isolated from the streets where activities are focussed on assisting children to recover from drug, physical or sexual abuse.
  • full-care residential homes - the final stage in many agencies' programs is when the child is no longer in the streets but lives completely in an environment provided by the agency. Some agencies promote fostering children to individual families. Others set up group homes where a small number of children live together with houseparents employed by the agency. Others set up institutional care centers catering to large numbers of children. Some agencies include a follow-up program that monitors and counsels children and families after the child has left the residential program.

• Street-based programs - these work to alleviate the worst aspects of street life for children by providing services to them in the streets. These programs tend to be less expensive and serve a larger number of street children than institutional programs since the children still must provide for themselves in the streets.
  • feeding program
  • medical services
  • legal assistance
  • street education
  • financial services (banking and entrepreneur programs)
  • family reunification
  • drop-in centers/night shelters
  • outreach programs designed to bring the children into closer contact with the agency
• Conscientization - change street children's attitudes to their circumstances - view themselves as an oppressed minority and become protagonists rather than passive recipients of aid.

Many agencies employ several of these strategies and a child will pass through a number of stages before he or she "graduates". First he/she will be contacted by an outreach program, then may become involved in drop-in center programs, though still living in the streets. Later the child may be accepted into a halfway house and finally into residential care where he or she becomes fully divorced from street life.

Responses by governments

Because they have not reached the age of majority, street children have no representation in the governing process. They have no vote themselves nor by proxy through their parents, from whom they likely are alienated. Nor do street children have any economic leverage. Governments, consequently, may pay little attention to them.

The rights of street children are often ignored by governments even though nearly all of the world's governments have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Governments are often embarrassed by street children and may blame parents or neighboring countries. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) may also be blamed for encouraging children to live in the streets by making street life more bearable or attractive through the services they provide.

When governments implement programs to deal with street children these generally involve placing the children in orphanages, juvenile homes or correctional institutes. However, some children are in the streets because they have fled from such institutions and some governments prefer to support or work in partnership with NGO programs. Governments sometimes institute roundups when they remove all the children from city streets and deposit them elsewhere or incarcerate them.

In the most extreme cases, governments may tacitly accept or participate in social cleansing operations that murder street children.In Brazil, for example, "Police say the death squads earn $40 to $50 for killing a street kid and as much as $500 for an adult. In January, Health Minister Alceni Guerra said the government had evidence that 'businessmen are financing and even directing the killing of street children.'"