The Unheard Voices: Street Children in

Kenya from a local and Global

perspective
“Street and working children are a common sight these days
in cities around the world especially in the poorer regions of
the south. Deprived of the joys of a normal childhood and
adolescence, many of them die early in a state of extreme
poverty, or from bullets full of hatred. Those who escape,
struggle to survive, roam the streets or waste away in
despair, relieving their suffering by escaping into the
imaginary in an often self-destructive way” (UNESCO,
1995).
Realities and Conditions
• Lack of self sufficiency,
• Lack access to essential services such as
education and health care,
• They face violence, drug abuse and sexual
exploitation, and disease including HIV/Aids,
• Poorly paid jobs, loneliness, police harassment
and even death.
• Homelessness,
• Lack of identification papers (West ,2003)
• They do not show up on the national census(
UNESCO, 1995).
Understanding the Terms
• Rotheram-Borus et.al(1991) defines homeless youths
to include those who have left their homes without a
parent's or guardian's consent (runaways), those who
are thrown out of their homes (throwaways), those who
leave problematic social service placements (system
kids), and those lacking basic shelter (street youths).
• further divided into ‘children on the streets’ and
‘children of the streets’. Children on the streets
maintain family contact and often return home
to sleep, but spend most of their time on the
streets either working or having fun. Children of
the streets are youth who live, work, and sleep
on the streets (Ensign, 1998).
Background to International
Youth Homelessness
• Homelessness emerged as a public concern in
the United States in the late 1970s and early
1980s
• By the mid-1980s to early 1990s, the visibly
homeless were becoming a common sight
even among those countries with well-
developed social safety-net programs, such as
Canada. Glasser & Brigman (1999)
• Street children in Africa are a recent
development but frequently reflects patterns of
exploitation emanating from colonialism in the
early 20th century. Bamurange as cited in
Kilbride (2000)
Extent of International
Homelessness
• The hidden and isolated nature of street children makes
accurate statistics difficult to gather
• UNICEF (1989) estimates there are approximately 100 million
street children worldwide with that number constantly growing.
• There are up to 40 million street children in Latin America. In
India, there are at least 18 million and 10million in Africa
• In Guatemala, 1.45 million children work on the streets in a
country where the total population is about 8 million. In
Philippines, 1.2 mil children live and work on the streets while
in, Thailand, an estimated 800,000 girls under the age of 20
work on the streets or in brothels as prostitutes ( Rocky. M in
Congressional Hearing, 1992).
• In the United States, estimates of homeless youth range from
500,000 to 2million (Enisgn, 1998)
• In Canada it is estimated at 15,000 and over in Greater Toronto
area alone by McCrossin
Kenya: Introduction
• Located in East Africa with a population of
around 37.9 million people, 2.78 growth rate
(2008 est), 60% of this population is below 20
years of age, with 40% unemployment rate.
50% of the population is estimated to be below
poverty line (2000 est.)
• The life expectancy rate in Kenya is said to be
56.64 years.
• The total area is 582,650 sq km (CIA, 2008).
• It is estimated that 1.2 million people are living
with HIV/AIDS and 150,000 HIV/AIDS deaths
(2003 est.) (CIA,2008)
Street Children Situation in
Kenya
• Estimated 250,000 children in Kenya living on the streets.

• Marginalized from basic services and support

• Harassment and abuse from the police and within the juvenile justice
system

• For some the street is the only home they know- born and bled in the
streets.

• Succumb to demeaning ways of living e.g. voluntary/forced

engagement in child labor, crime involvement, forced/opted early girl
child marriages, prostitution, begging, rampant abuse of cheaply &
readily available drugs e.g. bhang, glue and cigarettes.

• Rape, sodomy, police arrests and harassments, hunger and serious

physical assaults by both members of the public and older colleagues
in the streets.
• Prostitution: one in 10 cases less than 10 years of age involved in sex
work. According to a new report on the sexual exploitation of
adolescents and youth on the Kenyan coast, 30 per cent, or more than
one in four girls between 12 and 18 years, are selling sex for cash
(UNICEF 2006).
Push Factors
• incompatibility with family and step family members, disrupted
and dysfunctional families, neglectful parents, coercive and
abusive parents (emotional, physical and sexual abuse),
parental rejection and problems in school that often produced
further conflict with parents by (Hagan & McCarthy 1997)
• Rejection and stigmatization by family and community of orgin
for gay and lesbian identified youth are also reasons for
homelessness (Ensign, 1998)
• Structural adjustment programmes and globalization has led to
rapid urbanization. One of the negative consequences of these
changes is the emergence of large numbers of children on the
streets. (kopoka,2000)
• Poverty
• Abuse of drugs and armed conflict. A case point is the election
violence in Kenya after the 2007 general election, many
children lost their guardians or they were displaced.
• HIV/Aids is also a cause for children coming onto the streets
especially in the global south. (West, 2003)
Health
• Adolescents have unique barriers to health which
include confusion over legal consent to seek care, office
hours that conflict with school, and discomfort with
traditional health care settings.
• Health status data on homeless adolescents are limited
in both quantity and quality. They have greater problems
with access to health care, including a more profound
lack of insurance/payment sources, anxiety over issues
of confidentiality. Enisgn (1998)
• The risky behavior by street children put them at health
risk which include susceptibility to infectious diseases;
vulnerability to HIV/AIDs, physical and sexual abuse and
drug abuse.
Health
• Resistance by street children to accessing the formal health system, primarily
due to a perceived discomfort and fear that they would not receive the intended
care, or else would receive care in a very unsupportive and disrespectful
manner. Karabanow et.al (2007)
• Street children are seen as “dirty” this makes them not accepted in health care
settings. Homeless youth are more likely to seek medical attention after they are
no longer able to ignore a health problem. Homeless youth don’t go for
community health services for fear of being stigmatized as homeless.
• The delivery of HIV-related prevention and treatment programs to homeless
youths is especially difficult because of the life stressors, living situations, and
adjustment problem of these youths. For example, trainers in HIV prevention
programs have tried to involve families in reducing adolescents "HIV-related risk
acts (e.g., Winnet, 1991).However, families are typically the sources of the
greatest stress for homeless youths and so cannot be mobilized as supportive
resources. (Rotheram-Borus, Koopmaq,& Ehrhardt,1991).
• In terms of mental health, emotional distress and psychiatric problems are three
times more common among homeless youths than among adolescents in
general.
• According to a study conducted on Exploring the health Experiences of Halifax
street children, it found out that majority of the street youth involved in the study
suggested that street life enhanced one’s feeling of stress, anxiety and
depression-much of this related to the continual requirement to meet basic
needs of shelter, food and clothing. (Karabanow et.al, 2007)
Education
• Many street children in Kenya come to the streets after
being forced to leave school by poverty. While others are
“pushed out” (Killbride, 2000)
• In addition to enrollment problems, the high mobility
associated with homelessness has severe educational
consequences.
• Street children generally lack access to public education
services. Some are unable to go to school because they
need to work, because of discrimination or because of
costs.
• In most cases street children cannot access services
because they do not have any form of identification.
They are regarded as social drop-outs.
• While the government has waived the tuition fee and
provides textbooks, other classroom materials such as
exercise books are still the parent's responsibility
(Mushtaq, 2008) .
Social Connection
• Street children are seen as a public nuisance
by the general public. They have no real
connections with the public but they do develop
strong connections amongst themselves.
• In Kenya Street children are known as chokora,
roughly translated from Kiswahili as pokers at
dustbins or garbage heaps in search of food
and other valuables (Killbride et.al, 2000)
Kenyan street children are frequently observed
sniffing glue. The “glue bottle” in the public
mind negatively symbolizes what is taken to be
in Kenya, the defining characteristic of street
children: that is people who are trouble makers
and a threat to society (Kilbride et.al, 2000)
Exploitation
• Vulnerable to hazardous and/or exploitative labor
situations. Many formal and informal sectors depend on
children as a source of cheap labor. (West, 2003)

• Insatiable demand for child sex workers. Children may

be engaged in commercial sex work just to make a
living. For the girl child sexual exploitation is not only by
strangers but also by the street boys as a form of
payment for protection.

• A case in point is during the skirmishes that happened in

Kenya during the 2007 general elections. Street children
were used by politicians to cause havoc and chaos and
as a result many were killed and some injured.
Employability
• Most of the street children are
illiterate with no basic skills to help
them get proper jobs. The attitude
of the society towards street youth
acts as a barrier even to
employment. They are treated with
suspicion and seen as thieves.
Interventions
Government Level
• Support the efforts of Non-Government organizations in
addressing the issue of street children.
• It’s also the role of the government to protect all citizens which
includes the street children.
• It’s also important to get the business sector involved with the
oversight of the Government because more often than not they
are the beneficiaries of cheap labor provided by street children.
• It is the responsibility of the government to develop a system
that will include the street children population to be reflected in
the national census.
• Promote and increase access to family planning services
especially for the rural communities. This will help to reverse
the population explosion in Kenya.
• Develop more employment, recreational and participation
opportunities to channel youth’s energy in positive directions
and enhance their ability to make contribution towards nation
building.
Organization Level
• Commitment by organizations dealing with street
children through networking.This includes improving
communication, being less competitive about funding
and sharing all the available resources. Services need to
be Linked together to provide a more holistic approach.
• Programs designed for helping youth living in the streets
should be flexible enough to accommodate their
individual needs rather than conducting a blanket
intervention that gives no room to meet individual needs.
• Organizations to provide youth friendly services
especially in health centers by ensuring staff that are
trained in providing services to children and youth.
Community Level
• Teachers: They have daily contact with children and
interact with many parents. They should be able to
identify emerging problems before they become critical,
to communicate with parents and to assist in referring
families to professionals.
• Family outreach programs: available to families to help
they cope with issues at the family level. To deal with
issues such as communication, decision making, self
esteem, parental control.
• To address the attitude of the society towards street
children there is need to highlight the success stories, of
how street children can be reformed
Personal Level
• Change of attitude.