Effects of Street Children

Effects of Street Children

        Living in a place where you can possibly experience victimization, exploitation and human rights violence is very perilous to a child who still doesn’t know what is right and wrong. They can confront large number of problems living in a hazardous place that may result to compromise their rights.

        These are the devastating effects on the children themselves and to the society they belong.

1. To street children themselves

        1.1 Malnutrition

                Street children often don’t have access to a healthy and adequate diet, or worst, they don’t even have enough food, because they can’t produce any money to buy something that will satisfy their stomach. Also, they don’t care if the food they take is unhealthy. They eat what they can find on the street. If they have money, they’ll choose junk foods, ice cream, etc. instead of having a proper meal. This makes the children suffer from malnutrition and growth problems.

        1.2 Being Unhealthy Because of Improper Hygiene

                Street children encounter a lot of people in the streets and they live and play in a dirty place. Meaning, they are exposed to any kinds of germs and virus that they may take. Their unstable lifestyles make their right to live healthily compromised. These inadequate conditions increase children’s vulnerability to chronic diseases such as respiratory and ear infections caused by the cars and trains, gastrointestinal disorders due to unhygienic food they take and sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

                Also, they don’t have access to sanitary facilities. They can’t to make their body clean because they don’t have hygienic supplies like soap, alcohol, toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. that’s why they often have skin diseases and infested with fleas. Due to these hard living conditions, it’s having a negative impact not only in their psychological and physical development, but also in their cultural and economic development.

        1.3 Social, Emotional and Mental Growth Problems

                Street youth are often victims of discrimination. The mental, social and emotional growth of children are affected by their nomadic lifestyles and the way in which they are chastised by authorities who constantly expel them from their temporary homes such as doorways, park benches, and railway platforms. They are exposed to violence that adults can inflict to them. They lack security, protection, and hope, and continue to face a deep-rooted negative stigma about homelessness. And more than anything else, the cause of this is due to lack of love.