Some hard facts

• It is a fact that 30,000 children die from poverty every day in the world, that's one child every 3 seconds (Source: UNICEF).
• India has a quarter of the world's poor people, more than any other country.  It is always the most vulnerable, i.e. the children, who suffer most.
• Over 72 million children in the age group 5 to 14 years in India are deprived of basic education and have no opportunity of going to school (UNESCO country report for 2000).
• India is home to some of the largest concentrations of street children in the world and they have been a distinct social underclass for a longer period than elsewhere.
• India has as many as 18 million street children.  Whereas all of them are extremely poor, up to half of them are Dalit (untouchable caste), or belong to other scheduled castes or tribes, pointing to deeply ingrained patterns of inequality (HRWA 2000).
• Street children are often stigmatized by police and the general public, who often believe they are doing something wrong, even if they are only playing.

Life on the streets

Desperate conditions of poverty force children to live and work on the streets, often to save themselves and their families from starvation.  Apart from poverty, industrialisation and urbanisation has caused a breakdown of traditional Indian family values leading to infidelity, multiple marriages and consequent abandonment.  Children become the innocent victims of this malaise and consequently end up on the streets to avoid ill treatment at home or for survival. 

Street children are not a new phenomenon.  There have always been children who have turned to the street as a means of survival.  Some street children are highly visible, and the subject of public concern because they are 'out of place'.  Some see such children as victims; others see them more as small criminals. 

Very often, we choose not to see them at all.

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