Street Children Numbers to 'Go Through the Roof' as Growth Fuels Inequality Thomson Reuters Foundation
go to original April 14, 2014

Two students came to Santa Cruz, Bolivia with the dream of making a documentary film about street children. After 4 months of working with the children they got the opportunity to start planning the film. Inspired by their own experience, they got an idea: If people can get to see that there is hope for street children, then maybe bad attitudes can be changed and people can be inspired to help. (Svenn Sletner)

The number of street children will “go through the roof” in coming years as economic growth fuels inequality, said a leading advocate for children living on the streets.

Contrary to the common perception that poverty drives children onto the streets, it is rapid urbanisation and rising inequality that have stoked their numbers.

“We tend to think this is a poor country phenomenon, but this is not a problem of being a poor country, not a problem of being a weak country,” Sarah Thomas de Benitez, chief executive of Consortium for Street Children told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It’s part of what happens when you industrialise and urbanise and you go through political change.”

As countries industrialise, rural areas are often left behind. Families hoping for better opportunities relocate to the city in search for work.

But without their networks of relatives and neighbours they become more vulnerable, and often struggle to care for their children in the new environment.

It was the growth of inequality during rapid development in Latin America in the 1960s which created large populations of street children and inequality is one of the main reasons why so many children are still living on the streets of Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.

Read the rest at Reuters

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