Street Children Essays

Street Children Essays Street Children Essay Street Children Essay In the last 100 years , The Number of street children has risen in a scary way . The United Nations lately tried to estimate Their number . The estimated number was terrifying ,it was 150 million and rising daily . These children are part of the of future of our communities. Their age range is from three to eighteen years old, 40% of them are homeless. Imagine a three years old child roaming the streets with no place to go with no home! While the other 60% work on the streets to support their families . The Problem is that these street children are not in one country, not even one continent but they are all over the world especially in Africa, north and south America . According to statistics in the year 2000, the street children reached three-hundred and fifty thousand and rising, while in Latin America and Caribbean their number reached four hundred and ten thousand . On the other hand in all the developing world the number of street children reached 2. 5 million . But that is not all, These children while they are in the streets unable to go to school, they face a lot of problems like child trafficking, prostitution and working under severe conditions which are all against children rights. (Ennew) Identifying reasons for the existence of street children is essential in order to find a permanent solution for the problem, one of the main factors that contributes in the dramatic increase of street children is Poverty which caused by underemployment and low education standards and the lack of awareness of the benefits of family planning and birth control ways which leads to high birth rates, And in some part of the world specifically in developing countries like Rwanda and the Cambodia, the population has been pushed above the capacity of land and thus the standard of living has decreased and where the average number of children per family is eight, and according to official statistics 35 percent of the population in Cambodia lives below the poverty line where the average income of a person per day is 1800 Riel/0. 5 Sudan so they can’t afford a good standard of living by their income to their selves or their children and with the overcrowded schools and the government don’t offer suitable education with suitable price for their community, and with the low income of the parents they can’t afford to send their children to even public schools so they got no escape from sending their children to work in the streets and help them and support their family, And thus providing good education by the government and providing new job opportunities would help decrease the unemployment rate and thus increase the standard of living, and increasing the awareness of the birth control ways and family planning would help reduce the problem as the average number of children per family would decrease and thus make it easier on their guardians to provide them a decent standard of living. (child safe international) (Kospoka) In other parts of the world like in Africa, specifically in the Republic of Sierra Leone-Free town ,its common site to see street children in the city, after many years of armed conflict, the country is so poor, where the lucky children is forced to work instead of going to school and having proper and education and they would have a place to go in the end of the day and the unlucky those whose parents got killed in the armed conflicts and with no place to go as the government can’t afford to provide a decent shelter to to take care after those children rescue them from the street life ,and so the children are forced to live in the streets to work and to start to live on their own, according to the U. S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the UNICEF estimated that 71. percent of children aged between five and fourteen is working in Sierra in year 2000,most of these children want a change to get a decent education but unfortunely those whose parents survived t he armed conflicts can’t afford the expensive education system and thus there are no other way for these children except begging in the streets ,the danger is just in those children who had forced to live in the streets the real danger is in the upcoming generation of the street children if the current aren’t rescued or helped soon ,according to DR. Ibrahim Sallie a senior lecturer in the MMCET recently spotted the light on the upcoming generation, with the increase of violence and low morals and crime is Sierra Leone city this would sure effect those street children for sure ,and the problem will probably escalade as unlike the parents those second generation of street children would be raised with no definite moral or cultural or back ground except the culture of the surviving of the fittest, this would definitely would contribute in rising a new generation ull of criminals as they would do anything for living and just survive and increase the violence more and more ,and thus a secure environment free of armed conflicts would help to create a better climate for raising children and would give them better chance of becoming something more better than just street beggars and it’s the role of the governments to try to provide their citizens with secure environment and job opportunities with appropriate income to help those poor parents to prove their children with good education or provide public education with affordable prices for those poor parents who can’t afford it and for those unlucky children who lost their parents in the armed conflicts the governments should also care about them and make orphans houses that provide them with decent food shelter and education, to help to create a better civilized and educated generation, because they might not form a danger on the society in the near future but in the far one this would be a definitely a huge problem to deal with specially with the second generation who would be way more violent than the previous one and as more as the generation increases the more the crime and violence will increase and it will be then difficult to solve. (Prof. Martin) (Kospoka) And as discussed above, the causes of the street children phenomena could be resolved by proving a secure community free of armed conflicts and providing good education for the society with affordable prices that even poor parents can afford and working on making new job opportunities for adults and trying to reduce the unemployment rate and increasing the awareness about family planning and birth control ways would help to create awarded well educated and working society than they can easily raise their kids and providing them with good standards of living Bibliography child safe international. 2007. 2010 lt; childsafe-international. org/CountryInfo. aspgt;. Ennew, Judith. Difficult Circumstances. 2003. 8 november 2010 lt; crin. org/docs/Difficult%20Circumstances%20-%20Reflections%20on%20Street%20Children%20in%20. pdfgt;. Kospoka, Anthony. The problem of street children in africa : an ignored tragedy. 21 4 2000. Prof. Martin. gvnet. 2009. 2010