Survival Scenario of the Street Children in Bangladesh

Abstract

It is believed that millions of children are living in street situated across the world. Children living in street are one of the most vulnerable population groups of urban poor. They face huge difficulties while living in the streets. In fact, their lives are bed of thrones. Fortunately, they depend on themselves to overcome the hindrance in their own ways. The country in which they belong must have a policy to ensure their child and human rights as nobody wants to live on streets willingly. There are a numbers of reasons behind to become street children even though the reasons may vary from country to country, city to city, and from person to person. These factors also vary over time, such as poverty, displacement due to natural disasters and conflicts or family breakdown etc. In order to make a policy for the improvement of the condition of street children, it is required to have sufficient and necessary information on them. In the present research paper, the objective is many fold including to find and assess the demographic and social characteristics of street children, risks and vulnerabilities faced by the street children and finally to asses different parameters such as education, health, nutrition, shelter, livelihood etc. of the street children in Bangladesh perspective. In order to get a wider and clear picture regarding the issue, a total number of 400 street children were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire with both open-ended and pre-coded questions. The field data collection team had to meet/interview 300 sample street children at 62 locations of 25 Thanas in Dhaka City. In addition, the field data collection team had to meet 100 sample street children at 17 locations of 1 Thana in Barisal City. In this present study, a total of 10 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted with stakeholders in GoB agencies, NGOs, UN agencies. Based on the data analysis and finding, fifteen recommendations are made to make policies and actions plan for the different stakeholders including government authorities.

Keywords

• Street Children
• Vulnerable population groups
• proverty
• Survival Scenario
• Children Rights

How to cite

A K M Maksud, Mohammad Ekramol Islam, Afia Anjum Raisa, Tahsin Aziz Swapno (2024). Survival Scenario of the Street Children in Bangladesh. Sonargaon University Journal, 4(I & II), 91–99.

@article{maksud20249,
  title   = {Survival Scenario of the Street Children in Bangladesh},
  author  = {A K M Maksud and Mohammad Ekramol Islam and Afia Anjum Raisa and Tahsin Aziz Swapno},
  journal = {Sonargaon University Journal},
  volume  = {4},
  number  = {I & II},
  pages   = {91--99},
  year    = {2024},
  issn    = {2518-3125},
  url     = {https://su.edu.bd/journal/volume-4/survival-scenario-of-the-street-children-in-bangladesh}
}