FAST FACTS WHO IS THE STREET CHILD AND THE ABANDONDED YOUTH? WHAT LEADS A CHILD TO A LIFE IN THE STREETS?

FAST FACTS   Brazil has a current population of approximately 190 million people.   78% of the Brazilian population lives in cities and towns.   Brazils Income distribution is incredibly unequal: The richest 1% of Brazil's population control 50% of its income. The poorest 50% of society have to live on just 10% of the country's wealth.   According to some estimates, 36 per cent of the population is living in poverty. Brazil is second only to South Africa in the world ranking of income inequality.   According to the World Bank, income concentration in Brazil has created five types of social groups in the country: the indigent (24 million people); the poor (30 million); the nearly poor (60 million); the middle class (50 million); and the rich (2 million). (ILO 2002)   In the poorest regions of the country and in impoverished areas near industrial centers, 10% of the children are expected to die before they reach 5 years of age. Nearly all of the youth involved in organized crime will die before they reach 18 years of age.   In 2006, during a time of peace for Brazil, 17,163 youths were killed between the ages of 15 and 24. Almost the same number of people who lost their lives fighting in the 2002 Civil War in Angola, Africa.   In Rio de Janeiro alone, 3,937 kids were killed by gunfire between 1987 and 2001— eight times the amount of children that were killed in the Israel/Palestine conflict.   1 in 8 children around the age of ten, who live near drug zones, has parents who were murdered by drug traffickers.   In a survey conducted on imprisoned youth between the ages of 12 and 20 years of age, research concluded that 89.6% of the subjects had not completed middle school, 6% were functionally illiterate and only 7.6% had even attempted to begin secondary school (High School).      The International Labour Office (ILO) estimate that 16.1% of children 10 to 14 years old are economically active in Brazil. 4.2 million children are believed to be working in abusive conditions. Brazil has the third largest amount of working children in Latin America after Haiti and Bolivia. According to the ILO, 7,860 children and adolescents in eight cities in Rio are working in painful and unhealthy conditions. 2,160 do not go to school.    The Brazilian Interprofessional Association for the Protection of Children and Adolescents stated that approximately 2 million children, between 10 and 15 years of age, have been forced into prostitution.   Statistics from the Brazilian Ministry for Health indicate that 1% of all births occur in girls between 10 and 14 years of age. 18% of girls 15 to 19 year old are pregnant or are already mothers. In a phenomenon associated with poverty, 0.4% of Brazilian women who have been sterilized because of medical problems associated with births are between 15 and 19 years of age.    17% of people over fifteen in Brazil cannot read or write, and in some regions it reaches 50%. Only 40% of children who start school complete their primary education. 4 million children of school age are not in school. In some states such as Pará, 76.1% of its children do not attend school. According to statistics from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics, there are one million illiterate adolescents in the 15 to 19 age group.    The minimum wage in Brazil is R$415 (US $248) (February 2008). According to DIEESE, a non-government economic institution, the minimum wage necessary to satisfy all the demands (food, health, habitation, transportation, clothes, etc) of a typical family (parents and two kids) should be R$ 1,489.33      50% of the population in Brazil lives without access to sanitation facilities.    Brazil has a 9.6% unemployment rate. (2006 est.)   The informal job market has grown by an annual average of 5.19 percent in the last three years. Today, 27.8 percent of workers have informal jobs. (working without any type of contract with their employer)   Almost one in ten of the urban population exists below the UN’s Absolute Poverty Line. An estimated 800 000 of Rio de Janeiro’s 5.6 million residents live in favelas (shanty towns). Brazil has 21.1 million children under the age of 18 who live in families earning less than half of the Brazilian minimum wage, about US$102. (December 2007)

 
CIESPI (Center for Research on Childhood) 
International Labour Organization
CIA (Factbook 2007)
Nation Master (central data source, 2005) 
University of Delaware Library 

WHO IS THE STREET CHILD AND ABANDONED YOUTH?

The United Nations definition of a street child is:

The street population is divided into various groups:

	Children who spend part or all of the day on the street to earn money for their family.
	Children who go home every few days from the street.
	Children who go home on weekends from the streets.
	Children who spend their days and nights on the streets heading home occasionally.

Once the child experiences the street they tend to stay there longer and longer. Due to the distance from their homes, the cost of transportation and the lack of family intervention, they eventually estrange themselves from any home life they may have had.

Most people believe that the "street child" is a menace or young thief, a "pivete" or "moleque" as they are called in Brazil. The street children often sell candies, polish shoes or become involved in illegal activities beginning with petty crimes and leading to more serious crimes. They are feared by society as they represent a larger group of impoverished persons.

Thus, when we say "street child" and "abandoned youth" we are referring to the intersection between poor children and the street. We are talking about a segment of the poor population that must deal with the street in their daily lives

WHAT LEADS A CHILD TO A LIFE IN THE STREETS?

Despite the danger the street is generally seen as an alternative to the childs current life.

	These children almost always come from the "favelas" or slums surrounding the larger cities in Brazil.
	The "favela" holds no hope for a childs future due lack of options offered there, such as poor housing conditions and no space for leisure.
	"Favelas" are generally run by the drug traffickers who are recruiting children as young as 8 or 9 years old to begin working for them. It is highly likely that if ones gets involved with drug trafficking as a child he or she will not live to be an adult let alone an adolescent. In order to escape the drug world the street life is often seen as the childs only chance for survival.
	Some of the family relationships are marked by crime, drugs or physical violence and the child runs away to the street into freedom from these realities.
	Some children are forced by the family to go to the streets to earn money for the family.
	Most of the street children come from unstable families, unstructured home life and lives without roots and secure conditions, which leaves the door open to experience the streets.
	The street could simply be a place to just hang out, a curiosity for an adventure.

In all cases, the street becomes a viable alternative due to the simple fact that there is no suitable place for poor children and adolescents to go and no options for them in their communities.

Living on the street should not be considered an option for these children but rather as a product of the daily struggle and adverse circumstances that characterize their youth.