Street Children

In order to get some understanding of street children and the lives they lead we need to recognize that there are three distinct kinds of street children.

The first kind are children who are sent on the streets by their parents to earn their keep. These are the lucky ones in that they do have a home and family to go to and some of these children do also go to school.

Families in the Philippines tend to be large and there is little or nothing available in the way of financial assistance from the state, so whilst we may abhor the idea of these children being sent to work the streets at all hours of the day or night, it is understandable.

Then we have what are called children of the streets. These are children who have made their homes on the streets and they usually band in groups for mutual support in some ways very like a family. These children though do not return home at the end of the day and whereas they do have families they seldom or never visit and even see the family as bad.

Children on the streets and children of the streets make up approximately 90% - 95%of all street children according to best census inform at on

The third group are the children who have been completely abandoned by their families and are forced to scavenge and steal simply to exist this group represents 5 -10% of all street children.. These are the children who left home usually because of abuse.