A PLACE IN SOCIETY? STRENGTHENING LIVELIHOOD OPPORTUNITIES FOR STREET CHILDREN – A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15270/45-2-214Abstract
Most peoples’ encounter with street children is at a robot or walking along the pavement, wherethey try and avoid neglected-looking young boys or girls sleeping, begging or walkingunsteadily while sniffing on plastic bottles filled with cobbler’s glue. We know little of theirlives as our interactions are often brief and withdrawn. Whether we think of them as homeless,desperate, “victims of harsh circumstances” or a nuisance in need of care and rehabilitation, weswiftly delete their presence from our minds and move on. As Glauser (cited in Van Beers,1996:195) suggests, “in the eyes of a large proportion of society, including policy makers andimplementers, street children disrupt the tranquillity, stability and normality of society”.Because of this public perception, children of the street are often convenient culprits and atarget of blame for our own sense of insecurity, fear and inadequacy in a competitive world thatdemands ever more.Downloads
References
AIDS ORPHANS. 2002. Health Systems Trust. Available: http://www.hst.org.za/health
stats/89/data. [Accessed: 12/05/2005].
APTEKAR, L. & HEINONEN, P. 2003. Methodological implications of contextual diversity in
research on street children. Children, Youth and Environments, 13(1). Available:
http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/13_1.htm. [Accessed: 16/08/2006].
BESSANT, J. 2004. Mixed messages: youth participation and democratic practice. Australian
Journal of Political Science, 39(2):387-404.
BOWER, C. n.d. South Africa: the case for child-headed households. RAPCAN. Available:
http://www.rapcan.org.za/articles.htm. [Accessed: 26/02/2008].
CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (CIDA). 2001. CIDA’s
Action Plan on Child Protection: promoting the rights of children who need special
protection measures. Available: http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/INET/IMAGES.NSF/vLUImages/
pdf/$file/child_protection.pdf. [Accessed: 28/02/2006].
CHETTY, V.R. 1995. A social profile of street children in the Durban Municipal area with
special reference to their deviant activities. Durban: University of Durban-Westville.
(Doctoral Thesis)
CHETTY, V.R. 1997. Street children in Durban: an exploratory investigation. Pretoria:
HSRC Publishers.
COCKBURN, A. 2005. Who cares? Sexual abuse and street children in South Africa.
Available: http://www.cyc-net.org. [Accessed: 26/02/2008].
CONTICINI, A. 2004. We are the kings: managing, protecting and promoting livelihoods
on the streets of Dhaka. Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM),
Manchester.
DAILY NEWS 22 Nov. 2007, p.1.
GOPAUL, S. 2004. The phenomenon of street children in Durban. Durban: University of
Natal. (Masters Dissertation)
HECHT, T. 1998. At home in the street. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
INTERNATIONAL HIV/AIDS ALLIANCE n.d. The Street. Available: http://www.ovc
support.net/sw3297.asp. [Accessed: 20/11/2007].
JANSEN, P., RICHTER, L.M., GRIESEL, R.D. & JOUBERT, J. 1989. Glue sniffing: social,
psychological and neuropsychological factors in a group of South African “street
children”. Pretoria: UNISA.
LAWRENCE, J. 1998. Adult education and jobs, or sustainable livelihoods? In: SINGH, M.
(ed) Adult learning and the changing world of work. Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for
Education.
LE ROUX, C. 2001. A historical-educational perspective of urbanisation and its contribution to
the street child phenomena in South Africa. EDUCARE Journal of the Faculty of Education,
(1/2):94-114.
MERCURY 14 July 2004, p.4.
NEWMAN, L. 2004. Street children ‘dumped’ outside Durban. The Mercury, 18th May.
Available: http://www.policeaccountability.co.za/CurrentInfo/ci_detail.asp?art_ID=112.
[Accessed: 24/03/2005].
PROPOSED POLICY ON CHILDREN LIVING AND WORKING IN THE STREETS. 2005.
The Maurice Webb Race Relations Unit, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.
SERROKH, B. 2006. “Microfinance and street children”. Is microfinance an appropriate
tool to address the street children issue? Brussels: Free University of Brussels. (MA
Dissertation)
SWART-KRUGER, J. & DONALD, D. 1994. Children of the South African streets. In:
DAWES, A. & DONALD, D. (eds) Childhood & adversity: psychological perspectives
from South African research. Cape Town: David Philip.
SWART-KRUGER, J. & RICHTER, L.M. 1997. AIDS-Related knowledge, attitudes and
behaviour among South African street youth. Social Science and Medicine, 45(6):957-966.
SWIFT, A. 1997. Children of social change. Nottingham: Educational Heretics Press.
THOMAS DE BENITEZ, S. 2003. Reactive, protective and rights-based approaches in work
with homeless street youth. Children, Youth and Environments, 13(1). Available:
http://colorado.edu/journals/cye. [Accessed: 16/08/2006].
VAN BEERS, H. 1996. A plea for a child-centred approach in research with street children.
Childhood, 3:195-201.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged when works are cited.
Authors may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, and with conferences.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-4.0
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.
Articles as a whole may not be re-published with another journal.
