Plight of street children: An explorative study from Varanasi, India

Rapid pace of unplanned urbanization in the developing countries has resulted in a large proportion of children becoming homeless, leading to multiple children living on the streets. These children are highly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Against this background, studies on the situational a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mona Srivastava (Author), Nasra Shareef (Author)
Format: Book
Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications, 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to this object online.
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Rapid pace of unplanned urbanization in the developing countries has resulted in a large proportion of children becoming homeless, leading to multiple children living on the streets. These children are highly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Against this background, studies on the situational analysis of street children across India are needed; therefore, a study to assess the condition of street children in the city of Varanasi was planned. Street children registered with a nongovernmental organization were contacted. Four hundred and fifteen children were selected by random sampling, and this group was administered a semi-structured interview containing 35 items. It was found that all forms of abuse were common, but physical abuse (74%) was highest and the police (25.5%) was an important perpetrator. Younger children were much more vulnerable. The sample commonly had boys and between the ages of 10 and 15 years. It was concluded that these children need policies to be incorporated into the mainstream.
Item Description:0019-557X
10.4103/0019-557X.195856