Talk:Street children

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Outdated information
The article says that there are 40 million street children in Latin America, based on a study made in 1982. It´s incredible, because the official data of 2012 reveals that in Brazil there were about 24,000 street children. I don´t know where are the other 40 million street children in Latin America, maybe they have created a entire new country only with street children, since there are more street children than children in that continent. I mean, it´s difficult to imagine 40 million street children considering that Argentina, the second largest country, has 40 million inhabitants. It means that 100% of Argentina is occuped by street children. On the other hand, we can imagine that malicious NGOs are inflating the numbers of this article.

Distribution
"While the majority are in underdeveloped or poor countries, they are also found in highly industrialized and relatively rich states such as Germany (10,000)[19] and the USA (750,000 to 1 million)[20]"

Why not put these stats directly into the list, at 10th and 4th respectively? Fourth is nothing to sneeze at.68.147.166.50 (talk) 02:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Jeff, Calgary, Canada

Statistics
"In the United States, as many as one in seven young people run away or are thrown out of their homes before the age of 18. Many of these children have been driven out of their homes by extreme poverty, severe family conflict, abuse and neglect, or parental abuse of alcohol and drugs."

This seems like a very dubious claim to me. What stats back this up? In my city, Minneapolis, this would mean something like 14 thousand homeless minors wandering the streets. For the metro area as a whole, this would be around 100 thousand homeless minors.

- I agree. I am removing that line as it seems unrealistic and is not backed up -- rachel, US

- How do you add comments in this discussion? Hopefully I am following procedure. Anyway, I don't believe the stats suggest that they ALL must be homeless at the same time. Often, a child runs away many times which may skew them some. Do any stats ever reflect the actual truth? These numbers are meant to give a sense of the size of the problem. Not sure where they originated but I have heard these figures before. I'll do a little research and get back. Jqlogan 03:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

-- Actually, it wasn't hard to find. It is quoted on the National Runaway Switchboard web page at this URL: http://www.nrscrisisline.org/issuefacts.asp along with some other unbelievable stats--all with references. This stat has reference "J. Greene et al. Prevalence and Correlates of Survival Sex Among Runaway and Homeless Youth. American Journal of Public Health, 1999". If my voice matters, I vote to reinstate the line along with the reference once it has been validated. You should be able to validated the article on the American Journal of Public Health webpage. More specifically at URL: http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/89/9/1406. I appreciate your consideration of this matter. Jqlogan 03:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Ethanol?
Not that it matters much, but I think it is glue in those bags that children sniff from.
 * I agree. Ethanol is the substance found in alcoholic beverages-- I don't believe it's possible to get high from simply inhaling it. 02:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the section on Pune seems kinda un-encyclopedic.
It's written as an opinion, is it not?
 * Please sign your contributions by striking the tilde key four times. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Error in Classification
There seems to be an outright error in the classification section: Street Children are classified by UNICEF into the following categories:

* Children on the street: This is the largest group, consisting of children who work on the street. * Children of the street: These include runaways, abused, alienated children from deprived and poverty stricken families who are unable to maintain normal family units. * Children in the street: The smallest group, covering orphans and abandoned children whose parents may have died from war, illness or simply been unable to look after the children because of their family circumstance.

[Ref. UNICEF] [citation needed] I attempted to track down this classification at UNICEF and found: Definition of Street Children The most common definition of a street child or youth is “any girl or boy who has not reached adulthood, for whom the street (in the broadest sense of the word, including unoccupied dwellings, wasteland, etc.) has become her or his habitual abode and/or sources of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, supervised or directed by responsible adults” (Inter-NGO, 1985). This definition was formulated by Inter-NGOs in Switzerland in 1983. In this study the term “street children” is used to refer to children who work and/or sleep on the streets. Such children may or may not necessarily be adequately supervised or directed by responsible adults and include the two co-existing categories referred to by UNICEF as those “on the street” and those “of the street” (Agnelli, op. cit., p. 34). Other researchers identified these two categories amongst different street children populations (e.g. Dube et. al, 1996, Ennew, 1986; Scharf et al., 1986; Richter, 1988a). “Children of the street” are homeless children who live and sleep on the streets in urban areas. They are totally on their own, living with other street children or homeless adult street people. On the other hand, “children on the street” earn their living or beg for money on the street and return home at night. They maintain contact with their families. This distinction is important since “children on the street” have families and homes to go to at night, whereas “children of the street” live on the streets and probably lack parental, emotional and psychological support normally found in parenting situations.

from A Study on Street Children in Zimbabwe

A Google search for the reference yields only other studies citations of the work that contains this definition and classification, but not the original work itself. Considering that there is currently NO reference for the current information, The classification system should be revised to reflect the definition hinted at in A Study on Street Children in Zimbabwe.

Merge proposal
I want to merge Street children angeles philippines into this article. However, I don't what the majority of people who edit this article think about merging, so if there is no objection in five days, I will go ahead and do so. --Kannie | talk 18:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello Kannie, I oppose merging the articles for two reasons, the first is the article on street children is already quite long and growing. Second, Ill be adding at least four times more content to the article on street children in angeles, making the merge unappropriate I feel. Its possible, when I have time later, I might do a specific article on street children in the Philippines and it may at that time be a good merge proposal, so I suggest we leave the article be on the basis that in the future it may be merged with artcile on street children in the Philippines. What do you think? kind regardsSusanbryce (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I am specifically opposing the merging because Street children angeles philippines gives a very specialised view of street children specific to a particular geographic region. But this article documents a generalised view on the causes, condition and effects of street children with a worldwide view. The Phillipines article is different from that and also quite long with divided in sections. So how these specialised huge info specific to particular area can come in this article? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 18:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Although there are street children all over the Philippines, there are a few main areas such as Angeles, Manila and Davao which are unique in their own right for several variable reasons. What Id like to do is eventually set up an article on the other two manila and davao, then these three stand alone articles would link off from a main article on street children in the philippines which would link from the street children article here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that aims to give its users the most information it can and I feel this is the best way to move forward. kind regardsSusanbryce (talk) 18:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Very little is really verifiable
Street Children: Definitions and Numbers

Hope I can add a little to this discussion.

The category "street children" is amorphous. As editor of the Open Directory's "streetkid" category I have chosen to define street children as children who live independently in urban streets - no home and no adult caregiver. However, there are several other current definitions which would widen the category in various ways, such as "street working children". And there are definitions which would subsume street children into a broader category such as "children in difficult circumstances." And there are other categories which include only some street children, such as "orphans."

One way to look at the problem of definition is to consider the opposite: the normal child. The normal child has a home with one or more adult caregivers who are responsible for its economic and social maintenance. The child has few economic responsibilities and is primarily engaged in home and school based activities, with time for play and recreation. The child's activities are mainly directed by the caregivers and take place within boundaries they set. There is an unspoken contractual agreement between the child and the caregivers: they provide the basic requirements for the child's development - love, food, clothing, shelter, education, freedom to play and explore and in turn the child follows their instructions.

Any child who lives outside this basic framework in an urban environment might be considered a street child. A street child may work or beg or steal or scrounge, may sleep on the street or in an abandoned building or in a park or some sort of shelter built with other street children. His or her time is his own but does not generally include school. His or her freedom is absolute within the bounds of poverty, abilities, social environment and age. In most countries it is possible to find children who live this kind of life and their numbers are thought to be especially high in Asian, African, Eastern European and South and Central American cities. attempting to define a street child by by analyzing a set of their characteristics they may be more clearly be seen as a negation of normal or ideal childhood.

Theoretically, without a clear definition, it is impossible to come up with accurate figures as to the numbers of street children, so looking for authoritative information on this is hopeless. The problem is further complicated by the transitional nature of the category's population. Street children grow older and every day some leave the category and enter some other social category (homeless, unemployed, criminals, vagrants, etc) while other social phenomena (war, famine, social upheaval, economic collapse) may suddenly result in a large increase in the population of the category.

In addition, because different agencies use different definitions when estimating or counting street children even the best current estimates based on adding up numbers from various agencies in different countries are likely to be wrong.

So what does this mean for this discussion? It is not easy to come up with "facts" regarding street children. Despite a large amount of research we have neither an authoritative definition nor an accurate census, nor are we likely to have these. Yet these children do exist. They are recognizable and need to be recognized. How to recognize them in a fashion appropriate to Wikipedia is a difficult problem. I'd like to help.

Some other problems with the current article: Looking at the street children in a few particular countries is misleading since it implies that other countries may not have street children so I suggest that detailed examples (e.g. Russia, Nepal, etc.) should not be used. I also compile the blog archive "World Street Children News" at http://streetkidnews.blogsome.com/ and have there evidence of street children in about 95 countries. Links to specific agencies (e.g. Benposta) are similarly selective. The most useful thing that Wikipedia can do here is to provide links to directories such as the Open Directory's streetkid category http://www.dmoz.org/Society/People/Generations_and_Age_Groups/Youth/Streetkids/ that has links to about 280 different street child agencies working in many different countries.

Secondly, links to bibliographies would be useful to students and researchers. Joel Mermet maintains one online at http://www.geocities.com/joelmermet/streetchildren.html and there are a few others though not as comprehensive as his.

Thirdly, I suggest that "World street children news" (link above) is also useful for anyone trying to find out about the phenomenon of street children globally or in specific countries.

There are also a few agencies which attempt a global approach and synthesis of information - I'll provide links if anyone wants to find out more about them. There is no global agency that is specifically focussed on street children.

What do I suggest? It seems to me that the best solution is to abandon the attempt to be authoritative and settle for a short article about street children couched in the most general terms that outlines the difficulties of definition and numbers - not too different from the first section of the current article but perhaps expanded a little with some information about labor, drug use, sexual activities inappropriate for children, and health issues arising therefrom. It should also be mentioned that generally they lack the documents that might allow them a fuller participation in their societies. Appended to this might be a short list of links to additional information, such as the links given above.

I'll check back on this discussion from time to time. If I can help, let me know through discussion on this page or through the streetkidnews site email or open directory's streetkid category editor email. --I've since opened an account here: user name almudo 24.69.178.221 (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)bh Almudo (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)almudo

800 million?
"Estimates vary but one often-cited figure is that the number of children living independently in the streets totals between 100 million and 150 million worldwide, and it is forecasted that - by 2020 – the number will increase to 800 million.[2]" i The reference [2] for this figure is: http://streetkidnews.blogsome.com/category/1/north-south-america/honduras-streetkid-news However, the original source for this article is: http://denver.yourhub.com/Littleton/Stories/Famly-Friends/Stories/Story%7E261258.aspx This article gives a number of references for their information, only one of which gives the 800 million figure: From: http://www.friends-international.org/aboutkids.html "Some sources estimate that this number will increase to 800 million by the year 2020." There are no citations given in support of this figure beyond "some sources" - are these "weasel words?" Anyway, I can't find any other reference to this 800 million figure so I think it should be deleted.

And here's an informed discussion of the 100 to 150 million figures - with references (in the original pdf file). From: http://www.streetchildren.org.uk/reports/State%20of%20the%20World's%20Street%20Children-Violence.pdf - page 64 7.1 Street Children and Statistics: An Introduction 7.1.1 Estimating numbers of ‘street children’ is fraught with difficulties. In 1989, UNICEF estimated 100 million children were growing up on urban streets around the world. 14 years later UNICEF reported: ‘The latest estimates put the numbers of these children as high as 100 million’ (UNICEF, 2002: 37). And even more recently: ‘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 which has grown. While there are understandable pressures for policies to be informed by aggregate numbers, estimates of street child populations, even at city levels, are often hotly disputed and can distract rather than inform policy makers.

This report also contains a well-referenced discussion of definitions for street children that might be useful. --Almudo (talk) 03:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)almudo

I have removed the reference to 800 million for the reasons noted above.almudo (talk) 13:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Curious as to any factual numbers on street children in China.68.219.5.209 (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Photos
I assume that photos used to illustrate articles should have to meet similar criteria as other "facts" included in the article. Neither of the photos used (the Afghan street child and the Indian street children) appears to be authoritative in the sense that the authors claim to be or are recognized as being particularly knowledgeable about street children.

The description of the Afghan street urchin, as originally uploaded to Wiki describes him as an "Afghan teenager." The original source for the photo, the photographer's blog, does caption this photo as "street urchin." But the appended context description does not supply any reason for assuming this boy is a street child, although he may well be.

From the blog http://privatenotebook.blogspot.com/2006/05/image-gallery-afghanistan.html :

"The three black & white photos were taken in downtown Kabul. Sitting inside of a van...waiting for Kabul's only functioning traffic light to turn Green...I snapped this sequence of images in less than one minute."

It's a good photo but I don't think its provenance warrants its inclusion in an encyclopedic article on street children.

For the second photo, we have only the photographer's caption identifying these kids as "street children." But the contributor of this photo does not appear to have any special expertise in the area of "street children" and does not offer any background information about the children that enables the application of any criteria for judging whether or not these are street children according to any definition currently in use by experts in the field.

There are many excellent photographs of "street children" taken by experts who know them well and have documented their lives. Most would be happy to have one of their photos used to illustrate a Wikipedia article and could provide information that would make the photos authoritative.

I suggest that the article should include photos but that it should be clear that the children represented meet criteria defined in the article. (i.e. write the article first then add photos)

It might be most useful if the photos suggested the global nature of the phenomenon - say one photo for each continent - and pictured the most common aspects of street children's lives - sniffing solvents, eating garbage, sleeping rough, ragpicking, begging, etc.

Does Wiki have any facility for uploading videos? There are some excellent videos on street children - interviews as well as backgrounders.... --Almudo (talk) 02:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)Almudo

New Article
It seems at this time that there is not much interest within Wikipedia in this article or in efforts to improve it. Everybody's busy I know and the topic is not as important to others as to it is to me. Despairing of advice or assistance, I have unilaterally decided to replace the current article with a new article I have written. I hope this will stimulate some discussion and assistance to improve this article, which I look on as a work in progress. almudo (talk) 18:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I see wikipedia has reverted to the original article. I'm stumped at this point. If anyone wants to read the proposed new article it is located in my sandbox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Almudo/Streetchildren almudo (talk) 15:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The edit is unsourced, removes a large amount of information, and is POV. You should not try to redo the edit without further discussion. Your current edit seems more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. TheOtherSiguy (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Almudo had asked me to take a look at this article only because he found my name on the peer review list. I have no other experience with the topic.  I can't say, however, that I agree with TheOtherSiguy here.  This article has been tagged for cleanup since August.  Almudo was bold and his version, while probably not perfect, is a tremendous improvement.  The "unsourced" comment suggests to me that you didn't actually read Almudo's version: It has very many sources.  Let's get the discussion process started.  What is POV?  And what in the current article needs to stay?  Specifics are necessary if we are to make progress in improving this article. --JayHenry (talk) 02:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * To get the ball rolling, I added the section on numbers from Almudo's version. It's extensively sourced and I don't see what could be considered POV about the edit.  Perhaps it will be best to move section by section so we can review, but I feel that the numbers are fairly straightforward? --JayHenry (talk) 03:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to see some of my article represented now but am a little doubtful about replacing various sections of the current article with better information or citations. A fundamental problem with the current article is in its structure, the way it looks at the topic.


 * If the category "street children" has any validity, it must lie in characteristics that are shared by most of the members of the category. Thus an article structured around specific countries, such as is the case with the current article, is fundamentally flawed. Being Russian, Indian, Vietnamese, Romanian or Brazilian is not what makes a child a street child. I suggest that an article section on street children in Russia, for example, is more correctly a part of social demographic information for an article on Russia, than for an article on street children.


 * Secondly, the selection of 5 countries may imply that other countries have fewer or no street children. The countries selected are by no means representative of a widespread phenomenon. There is no African or North American country represented although street children in Mexico and Kenya far outnumber those in Romania. I am not arguing for the inclusion/exclusion of specific countries. I only want to point out that there does not seem to be any particular rationale for the current article structure, so why struggle to preserve it?


 * Thirdly, the country focus sections are not equivalent; they don't discuss the same issues. Nor are they generally supported by citations. Street children in Russia are discussed in five sentences. Indian street children also get five sentences, most of which are not about street children and none of which are supported by citations. Street children in Vietnam get seven sentences and a lot of confusion around numbers (8,000? 15,000?) and related categories - migrant children and children in especially difficult conditions. Links to many NGOs are included though none are mentioned for other countries. One article is cited in support of this section. The Romanian section is unsourced and makes some questionable assumptions. Here is the opening sentence of the Brazil section: "Estimates on the numbers of Brazilian street children vary from 200 to 8 million." 200? Should this be 200,000? or perhaps 2 million? Brazilian street children have "underlying causes" apparently significant enough to warrant a sub-section though the causes are not more particular to Brazil than to most other countries. Death squads and drug gangs likewise get Brazilian sub-sections although they exist in other countries. The "Drug gangs" section is particularly notable for its irrelevant information and discussion on guns.


 * My conclusion on this is that there is very little in the current article that is worth saving or shoring up with citations. I'm not completely satisfied with the sections and subsections in my re-write either but offer it as a basis for comparison. We might also look at other similar categories such as "refugees" to see how they have been treated in Wikipedia.almudo (talk) 14:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I would agree with all points of substance which you have made. Personally therefore I vote for a whole replacement with your better version of the article. We could just do it but lets see if others want to comment on this proposal. Its not a vote of course. But opinions are welcome. --BozMo talk 20:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am in a group for my class on Marriage and the Family that is doing research on street children and attempting to educate others about them, and as part of our project we wanted to help bring this article up to a good quality. I agree with Almudo that there is not a lot worth saving on the current page, and after looking at Almudo's page, his is a great place to startcckrspnl56 4/4/08  —Preceding comment was added at 20:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added the section on definitions and names, as I think this is essential information atop the article. I changed the names section and made it a subsection of definitions, because I think the term in other languages is possibly of secondary importance to the meaning of the term in English. I don't feel very strongly about this one way or the other (just thought this was slightly clearer), but if anyone objects don't hesitate to say as much. --JayHenry (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have added a few more sections and made some edits to them. If anyone has any concern with the material added, please let me know.  One suggestion I might have: the section Street children contains good information, but it's somewhat unusual on Wikipedia for sections to contain a hierarchy of bullets like this.  It might give some readers the impression that they are reading an executive summary of some sort, rather than an encyclopedia article.  I wonder: would it be possible to write this portion of the article out into paragraphs instead? --JayHenry (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks and lets keep talking
Thanks to all who are helping to move this article forward. There is a core point of view in my re-write of the article which, if I state it bluntly, may move this discussion along and lead to some solutions to problems that are in my re-write.

The core point of view is that street children are a global social category who share many common charactistics. However, they have not been researched from this point of view very often. Most information focuses on a specific group of these children in a certain country or city. This makes global information pretty scanty and leads to descriptions that are particularized for a certain locale. Local information is more readily available but always detracts from the global perspective and is likely to lead to disputes over unimportant details. For instance, in order to give some idea of the global distribution of street children (section 2.2 of the current article) I selected a few countries from each continent and dug up some population figures for those countries. I did this because I don't know how else to establish the global nature of the phenomenon. I suspect that the particular countries selected and the figures attached to them are going to be a constant source of debate. Yet for the purposes of that section of the article, it really doesn't matter if the population of street children in Russia is 1 million or 5 million. The "fact" that the section is trying to communicate is that there are a lot of street children and they are in major cities on every continent. If anyone knows a better or less contentious way of doing this I will be happy to drop the references to specific countries and their street child populations.

So JayHenry, to apply this perspective to your edit of names/definitions: I prefer my original to your edit because it establishes the global nature of the concept of street children as expressed in many different languages and cultures. Once the name has been established, then attempting to define it is a logical continuation. A definition is a meaning of a name. A name is not a sub-category of a definition.

Another place where my re-write has a similar problem (i.e. global vs local) is in the section 10.2 "NGO responses." There are few citations because I don't know any resource where this information is discussed or summarized. Once again, it would be easier to look at specific NGO programs that use strategies outlined in this section. However, here one runs into the same old problem of endless editing that people will engage in to promote a particular NGO or approach. What I wanted to communicate in this section is that if you look at any NGO working in the field anywhere in the world they will almost certainly be using one or more of these strategies. It's in point form because it's a list and presenting it that way seems the clearest and least opinionated way of doing it.

In many of the sections I have tried to establish the factual nature of global generalizations with specific examples from the widest possible selection of countries so that readers don't get the misconception that street children are an Indian or a Russian or Romanian problem. I am not too sure how well this works or how else this might be done.

I don't think attempting to keep a global perspective is "POV." I will quote another Wiki editor from the discussions above "...this article documents a generalised view on the causes, condition and effects of street children with a worldwide view...." (See Merge Proposal, section 6 above).

Also pertinent is the slightly heated discussion on links in the "external links" discussion above. In the final article I'd like to see only a few links for further information about NGO projects and programs and those links should be to directories, not to specific projects - even if they have pages or articles here in Wikipedia. NGOs are competitive and if a link to one is allowed, then others will attempt to add their links to channel some of Wikipedia's traffic to their websites and the article will end up being a links directory. So I'd like to get rid of section 11 ("See also") in the current article - Benposta and Covenant House are by no means representative of NGOs working with street children and links to them may well be construed as promotional or even biased in that both of these agencies are operated by representatives of the Catholic Church.

Finally, what's missing? One section that is missing is the responses of street children themselves to the various programs operated for their ostensible benefit. How many actually benefit? How many participate or drop out? How do they view the services offered? What do they think of their situation? What do they want? I'm working on this but welcome any suggestions.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Almudo (talk • contribs) 17:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC) Oops! Forgot to sign thisalmudo (talk) 18:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there much research done that would give us some statistics for that? Many documentaries have great case studies of how children react to NGO response. Children Underground, for example. But these are just case studies and thus not good for generalizing. Cckrspnl56, 24 April 2008 02:33 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.87.185.145 (talk) 07:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can't see much point in working towards additional sections for this article or negotiating for photograph permissions. I don't understand the wiki process here at all. Frankly, there doesn't seem to be much of a process. What we have now after several months of muddling is a hybrid bastard of an article that is barely better than the original. If I remove stuff my edits are reverted. If I "discuss" what's wrong with the current article or rationales for suggested changes as in several sections above, there is little or no meaningful response. As someone who has some knowledge and experience in this field, I am very disappointed that the current wikipedia article should be considered to be authoritative. Parts of it are confused, irrelevant, repetitive, tautological and ungrammatical. Just read the current introductory paragraph for examples of all these problems. If any wikipedian wants to participate in improving this article beyond leaving specious notes inviting the gullible to "help" or "talk" or "get involved," leave a note here or on my talk page. I will check back from time to time.almudo (talk) 18:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Little error in "Names"
One of the names the article says is used in Bolivia IIRC, says resistoleros (little rebels)

The translation has a mistake that involves the street children habits, as "resistoleros" is a way of referring to their habit of inhaling industrial glue, one of the major brands being "Resistol". That's where "resistoleros" comes from, not from little rebels... that would be something like "rebelditos"

D'oh, it was Honduras... well, just adding my little contribution to this article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.143.24.145 (talk) 20:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

UK
I'm not sure who is running this show, but does the proposed DCSF description, help to clarify? : Children not on a school roll; Children who have been on the school roll, but have left for an unknown destination; and Children on a school roll who never attend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Veraguinne (talk • contribs) 22:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Why far more boys than girls?
The gender subsection states that 70%+ of street children are male, but nowhere in the article is any indication of why. It is obviously not coincidence that boys outnumber girls by well over 2:1. The reasons for the gender disparity should be added to the subsection. Werdnawerdna (talk) 13:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Girls in need of care and protection are hidden by the "Street Child" focus and statistics. Our prevention and early intervention work in street-child communities of origin in Cape Town has shown that there is no difference between the number of street-vulnerable girls and boys at a community level. In fact there are more chronically neglected, abused, school drop-out girls than boys in these communities. Once you get to the street however you find that 99% of the children actually "living, working and begging" on the street are all boys. Ignore the fact that "working" street girls are difficult to reach and work with, and therefore blatantly ignored by street child statistics and interventions, the discrepancy between the number of vulnerable girls and boys in the community, and those on the street requires careful investigation. Our experience has found that many vulnerable girls stay at home as domestic slaves, they have to cook and clean, and look after the smaller children, while the parents are "working", simply too drunk, or too high on drugs. These girls are also valued because they are sexually abused by the mothers boyfriend, brother, even their father at times and often with the mothers blessing. Girls are therefore often kept at home and do not head towards street life, while the boys are quickly thrown out of the home, or even sent out to beg for money. Once a child does however leave home and moves towards street life, the girls are quickly picked up in the drinking halls and by the gangs or pimps as they have value there. So while the statistics say that 99% of street children are boys, they are actually ignoring a huge part of the problem. PVHooper (talk) 08:26, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Brazilian Death Squads
I think this mention could do with more explanation. Are Brazilian police murdering random street children? Is it a vigilante group? I am thoroughly confused. 98.196.78.26 (talk) 04:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Brazil
There's a lot of cleanup to be done here. 10 million street children here in Brazil? Shame on whoever wrote that. To the above IP, police do not make a job out of roaming the streets looking for innocent children to obliterate, contrarily to what this article would have one believe. Missionary (talk) 05:08, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Russia
First of all, your proof link on the figure on Russia does not work. Anyway - there were 700 000 children with no parents in Russia (6 years old data anyway). But they are not street children - most of them live in special schools! Thus the number of homeless children in Russia is far smaller!

Balalayker (talk) 05:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for article on street children in India
I propose to create a new article about street children in India for the following three reasons:

1. Though this street children article exists which gives general information about street children with subsections on specific countries, these subsections are meant to give general information about the number and location of street children in various countries, not detailed information about the causes and experiences of street children in specific locations. The proposed article will provide an in-depth view of street children in India.

2. It is estimated that more than 100,000 children in India are street children. Research has found that these children have different needs and experiences than other children in poverty. Street children in India have been the topic of a substantial amount of research, and the knowledge gained from this research should be summarized and combined to provide the public with accurate information about this specific subset of the Indian population.

3. Beginning in the 1990s, the Indian government began to give unique policy space to street children. The programs instituted by the government and NGOs have had varied success. A summary of these programs and their effectiveness will be included.

In conclusion, street children are an especially vulnerable group in India. This article will fill an information void and make knowledge of street children in India easily accessible for better understanding and, hopefully, serve as an incentive for some to help.

Following the street children in the Philippines precedent, I will add a bit of general information about street children in India to the India section on this page and then link my article.

I would love feedback when I finish the article and get it up! KiaraDouds (talk) 03:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The article, Street children in India, is now up. If any of you want to offer feedback, that would be wonderful! KiaraDouds (talk) 15:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Street Children in Latin America
I am currently a student at Rice University pursuing a minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities (PJHC). One of the minor's projects is to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles on issues related to social inequality. I have added a Wikipedia banner linking to the PJHC course page; feel free to visit it to learn more about the articles we are currently working on and have worked on in the past.

As more people have begun to expand on this "Street Child" article by creating new related articles focusing on areas where studies on street children have been conducted, I intend on following in their footsteps by creating an article about Street Children in Latin America. Earlier contributions to this talk page have mentioned that there are few scholarly and reliable sources about "street children" in general. Instead, many research articles focus on street children in one particular geographic location because the situations of street children differ from region to region. There is an excess of scholarly research concerning street children in Latin America--from Brazil to Guatemala to Colombia, street children are commonplace. Most researchers have grouped street children in Latin America into two categories: home-based street children and street-based street children. The former refers to children that spend their days on the streets but have physical homes and families to return to--but are forced to search for work on the streets because of poverty. The latter refers to children without physical homes, children who work, sleep, eat, and play on the streets. Although it is difficult to determine just how many street children currently exist in Latin America, some sources such as UNICEF estimate that as many as 45% of children in Latin America are, will be, or have been street children at some point (home-based or street-based). These numbers are debatable, but the underlying issue of street children remains. Street children in Latin America face a variety of hardships as the current street child article mentions, but studies have shown that they are more resilient than many may think. Furthermore, although street children in Latin America do experience many challenges (drug use, gangs, working on the streets), some studies have suggested that the victimization and stigma that street children must endure is just as, if not more, detrimental to their sexual, mental, and physical health.

Unfortunately, most of this research-backed information about street children in Latin America is not easily accessible to the general public. I hope that my article will meet this need and also act as a launching pad for future Wikipedia collaboration about this topic.

168.7.249.217 (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

General Suggestions for the Article
I am a student at Drake University working on expanding the base of global youth studies on Wikipedia. My plan is to add a section to this article about street children in Greece. Disabilities, both mental and physical, are a factor that plays into the reason why children in Greece are on the streets, and I'd like to expand the Causes section in this article to include that as well. I have a few suggestions for making this page better, too.

In Statistics and Distribution, I would cut China out of economically unstable, considering it has the second largest GDP in the world right now. India is also experiencing economic growth (and even mentions this later in the article in the India section), so it might be best to cut that, too. A lot of the numbers included in this section are from the early 2000s. Due to economic strife in much of the world (especially after the market crashed) it might be necessary to get some new numbers, which I may be able to help obtain, too.

History focuses almost exclusively of Soviet Russia. At this point, cutting the section entirely might be the best. If not, I will suggest cutting down the first quote to a more manageable size, and linking theft and prostitution within the article.

For specific countries, information needs to be expanded by a whole. More specific efforts by government and NGOs should be accounted for as well as possibly institutional reinforcement of the condition. By this, I mean what the government and economic system is doing to keep street children a growing problem. The causes section is weak and should include more examples; like mental illness, physical handicaps, specific family problems (i.e. abuse or job loss), and lack of entitlement programs, and health care. The following countries also need more (or better) citations: Russia, Brazil, China, Vietnam, and Pakistan.

Responses by government and NGO responses could also use more concrete examples.

I thank you for considering some of my edits, and I'll also be doing some work until mid-May on improving this article. AbbeyMaynard (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks great to me; I can't wait to see the article edits! Neo Poz (talk) 02:55, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources for Pending Work
I previously posted on some improvements I'm working on making to the Street child page, and I've found some sources I thought I'd share with all of you. Questions, concerns, suggestions are more than appreciated! I'm still looking for ways to update the statistics, but if you know of any sources you'd think I'd find useful, that would be wonderful.

Edits Are On Their Way!
Hello again, everyone. I just thought I'd post some changes I'm planning on making to the article in the next month or so. If it looks like a lot, its just because I thought it would be easiest to divide it up by sections. I will be referencing three of my sources I posted previously on the talk page, referring to them as "street kids" for the one about American street children, "Greece" for the one about Children's Rights in Greece, and "Mumbai" for the one about India. Anyway, once again I'd love to hear some feedback.

Name Change
There is another article about a musician called Street Child, I will propose changing the name of the article to “street children” to make the page easier to find.

Definition

 * Include a subcategory of thrownaway children, forced to leave home, “street kids”
 * Note that more likely to be thrownaway if family is working class and single parent homes.
 * Change the definition of street children in opening to “Homeless youth, also known as “street youth” and “street kids”, have been defined by the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act as a person between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one “for whom it is not possible to live in a safe environment wit a relative and who has no other safe alternative living arrangement””, “street kids"
 * Change section in the Definition section to omit the part where it says that it is unclearly defined, it contradicts what is above, this is the first sentence of the “definition” section.
 * Cut second paragraph, too.

Statistics and Distribution

 * NGOs are not mentioned without their acronym, add this, first paragraph.
 * I would cut China out of economically unstable classification considering it has the second largest GDP in the world right now. India is also experiencing economic growth (and even mentions this later in the article in the India section), so it might be best to cut that, too.

History

 * Switch the third and second paragraphs around, it does not make sense that it talks about the UK between talking about Soviet Russia.

Causes

 * Causes for leaving: “sexual, physical or emotion abuse, domestic violence, family conflict, dysfunctional homes, lured away by pimps or internet predators… mental health problems, substance abuse, sexual orientation or gender identity issues” “street kids”

India

 * Estimated 1 million or more street children in New Dehli, Kolkata, and Mumbai each, average age of street child is about 14 in India “Mumbai”
 * Taken from article, “Street Children in India”, include this new estimate of figures in the India article
 * Include that India has more male street children than female.
 * Taken from “Street Children in India”
 * Add the citation to the “Street Children in India” article for the “street child” page, this is where most of the information provided is coming from.

Vietnam

 * There is a sentence fragment “according to data”, delete it.

Indonesia

 * Clarify the language, general copy editing.

Pakistan

 * Poorly written sentence, “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”. It also has no citation so I may just cut it.

Philippines

 * Note that there are more boys than girls, here, too. 70% are boys
 * this is taken from “Street Children in the Philippines”

Latin America

 * Mostly males between 10-14, “Street Children in Latin America”
 * Most are on streets to work, but not necessarily to live “Street Children in Latin America”
 * Primary cause is poverty “Street Children in Latin America”

Greece
My primary interest in advancing this article is to expand the knowledge of Grecian street children with disabilities. To follow the format previously set forth in the above paragraph, this issue will fall into both the causes and government and NGO sections.


 * Foster parents for special needs children not implemented by government “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Some financial benefits for children who are orphans and meet requirements “Children’s Rights in Greece”, but if they live in state run institutions they cannot qualify
 * For benefits to the parents, they often have to have more than one child, may act as a deterrent to just have one child so they end up on the street or incentive to have more children than they can take care of “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Begging outlawed in Greece in 2003 as well as other street activities, recent unemployment hike has increased the levels “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Recent emergence of trafficking children in 2000s, “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Children who are trafficked are called “street children” or “traffic light children”, come mainly from Albania, **decreased numbers in recent years, “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Disappearance of street children from state run facilities in 2003, “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Legislative action to criminalize human trafficking and related crimes, “Children’s Rights in Greece”
 * Amnesty International reports that the problem still exists and there is a failure of government protection and justice of trafficked children, “Children’s Rights in Greece”

United States
This section will be the tacked on at the very end, Greece will come before it because the United States is most different from all the other countries mentioned. It also helps decrease the appearance of Western systemic bias on Wikipedia. In order to enhance the frame of reference for the global south I will add a United States section under countries. I will include areas with high street children populations, U.S. specific causes and history of street children, and ways the US government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are trying to combat the issue.


 * “Estimated two million [youth] run away from or are forced out of their homes each year”, “street child”
 * A less permanent state than in lesser developed countries, “anywhere from hundreds of thousands of youth to a few million children run away from home in the United States for some period of time in a given year”, “street kids”, about 300,000 are habitual
 * Predominantly white and female “street kids”
 * Estimated 1.6 million youth are homeless in the US, 42% identify as LGBT “street kids”
 * 83% do not leave the state “street kids”
 * Homeless youth often go to New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and San Francisco if they travel to a large city
 * Police often refer homeless youth to state-run social service agencies, arrest rates of street youth are on the **decline, 30,000 arrest drop from 1998 to 2007 “street kids”
 * Runaway and Homeless Youth Act enacted in 1978, made funding available for shelters, National Runaway Switchboard takes calls from street children, Child Abuse and Treatment Act (1974), National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Detention Act, “street kids”

Responses by Governments

 * Legislative action to criminalize human trafficking and related crimes “Greece”
 * Amnesty International reports that the problem still exists and there is a failure of government protection and justice of trafficked children “Greece”

Internal Links
Internal links shall be made to the following:
 * Legislative Acts that I will be adding in the article
 * Russian Revolution
 * Ministry of Civil Affairs
 * Yogyakarta
 * Turkey

Internal links shall be deleted from the following, because they are common knowledge and make the page look messier.
 * murder
 * abuse
 * neglect
 * exploitation
 * western societies

Take a look at my sandbox if you'd like to see my progress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AbbeyMaynard/sandbox AbbeyMaynard (talk) 00:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Suggest removal of multiple issues tag
After User:AbbeyMaynard finishes editing this week, I believe many of the previous problems will have been solved. She is also planning to change the name to the more accurate "street children."Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 21:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Feedback
I'm reviewing this article as the online ambassador for Global Youth Studies (Spring 2013). Pardon the length, I feel this warranted a detailed breakdown. Bear in mind that some of the observations relate to the article in general and not just the changes that were made recently.

General and lead

 * Good call on the moving the article to 'street children' - your opening sentence should say reside though as the subject is now plural.
 * The use of italics for street children throughout the article is unnecessary.
 * References - there's a mix of referencing styles on the article, with some in parentheses and others as footnotes. It would be best to have a consistent referencing style throughout. The references in parentheses do not have corresponding references listed in the reference section (e.g. What does Black 1993 refer to? There are references for UNICEF for 2002 and 2005, but it isn't clear which UNICEF reference in the reference section they refer to, if any.)
 * References should not be bare urls. The reflinks tool can be used to fill these in.
 * References should not just be links to other Wikipedia articles.
 * Punctuation should come before references.
 * In the lead: UNICEF's concept or UNICEF's definition?
 * According to a report from the Consortium for Street Children, a United Kingdom-based consortium of related non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UNICEF estimated that 100 million children - if the statistic is UNICEF's, why say it is according to a Consortium for Street Children report?
 * It isn't clear what years are being referred to with "Fourteen years later" (presumably 2002 - 14 = 1988?) - as this entry may remain stable for a long time, it is best to specify the years.
 * 'Thrownaway children' could be linked to Child abandonment
 * More terms could be linked - single parent, neglect, rural-urban migration, 1997 financial crisis in Indonesia, National Runaway Switchboard, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act

Definitions

 * I was partial to some language you removed here (""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).") Was there a reason this was removed?

Statistics and distribution

 * India and China were removed as examples of countries where street children are prevalent, as well as supporting references. Why? Now it sounds like African countries are the only places where this is prevalent.

History

 * The number of references supporting the term besprizornye is excessive and probably unnecessary.

Causes

 * Good job expanding on the causes.
 * "In the United States, up to 100% of homeless women have experienced domestic or sexual violence." - I realize the reference says this exactly, but it comes across strangely. Perhaps this can be reworded.

By country

 * "India has an estimated one million or more street children in each of the following cities: New Dehli, Kolkata, and Mumbai." - does this mean one million in each city or one million altogether in the three cities?
 * The previous version said that Indonesia has "cleansing operations’ that remove the children from the street" - was this removed for a reason?
 * "Handicapped" is sometimes considered an offensive term - better to use "physically or mentally disabled"
 * Russia - "really homeless" as opposed to just "homeless"?
 * Need page numbers for the Street Kids: The Lives of Runaway and Thrownaway Teens references.

That's all for now. This article is coming along nicely. Gobōnobō + c 19:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Will email to alert editor to your comments - this work will continue into fall.Prof.Vandegrift (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I've added a little to the Africa section by doing a little research into Street Child - not promoting charity but having discussed with some member of the charity, just realising how bad a situation street children world-wide is, and, finding this aspect lacking, thought I'd add more to it - however, please amend if going against any regulations. Thanks Crescent (talk) 00:51, 16 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Information about Western Europe is totally missing. Regarding Germany the estimations are between 6.000 and 10.000. -- Manorainjan  22:15, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Street urchin
"Street urchin" redirects here yet there is no mention of it in the article. Maybe it should be mentioned in the definition section? Kevink707 (talk) 17:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think "Street Urchin" only applies to orphans on the streets. It says so on the TV-tropes websites (and has a lot of fictional-examples).184.186.4.209 (talk) 03:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

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Street Children in popular culture?
"Oliver Twist" and "Capitães de Areia" are two of something like a genre within the social novel portraying street children. I wonder if this does not merit a section in the article, something like "Street Children in popular culture". The unofficial guidance essay in popular culture seems to be in favor of this sort of thing.--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 22:59, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll vote for it, and there is a list of fictional-street-kids on the TV-Tropes website: there's Kit Cloudkicker of Talespin, Ezra Bridger of Star Wars Rebels and more.184.186.4.209 (talk) 03:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

"Street children are sometimes called prostitutes"
Several weeks ago, someone changed the text of the lead section so that it describes street children as "prostitutes" instead of "gamines." Is this an accurate description of them? Jarble (talk) 19:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It was vandalism. . 77.161.58.217 (talk) 20:25, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

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What on earth is a cult doing in the citations for Russian street kid numbers!?!?!?!?
Under the Russia segment of this article, it is claimed that "experts" have estimated that the Russian street children population has risen to 2-4 million. Well not only was this claim not mentioned once in the citation given, but the supposed "experts", the FCF A.k.a. Family International, is a doomsday pedophile Christian cult founded in California. How anyone could even confuse this for an expert opinion on the issue? Now I don't have the time to sort through all of the edits to the page's history and I'd be happy if someone else could see where this dubious source came from, I am legitimately confused what motive someone would have for putting it into the article. Is this fake news, and if so, for whatever purpose? Is this an actual FCF member WP:POVPUSH ing? The whole thing mind boggles me.

I'm removing this until and unless someone can find a more reliable source for the segment on juvenile homeless population growth in Russia.

SlimShadyCommanda (talk) 15:07, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone has added a figure of 2,500,000 street children again. That's completely insane, since it's 4x times more than the total amount of homeless people in the US (around 650,000) with 2 times smaller population. If that was true, all Russian cities would look like a scene from Mad Max 2, which is clearly not the case as of today. Finstergeist (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Street Children of the Great Depression
Street-kids were also common during the Great Depression: there's quite a lot of articles over the internet to prove it. Just saying it would be worth adding in.184.186.4.209 (talk) 02:38, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

peer review
Great article. Covers the topic very well. Very informative and full of knowledge. Maybe give more background on the causes of this problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oqazi1 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 17 October 2019 (UTC)