There are about one million street
children in Egypt, the majority of whom lives in the capital of 18
million people, Cairo.
These children, who both live and find their living on the streets, are
exposed, irrespective of their sex, to sexual
abuse, prostitution, violence, pollution, city noise, dirt and serious
illnesses (anemia, cholera, tuberculosis, hiv, aids
and venereal diseases). Children often look for comfort for their hard
life in drugs, for example, snorting glue.
The most vulnerable are the street
girls, many of whom end up becoming street mothers.
Society treats the children who live, sleep, beg and vend inexpensive
items on the streets as nuisance or even criminals,
who are regarded guilty of their own agony. The biggest problem for the
street children in Cairo is their invisibility
– many of them have no birth certificate which excludes them from
the public social security system including
education and health care. Street children are casualties of, e.g.,
poverty, high birth rate, lack of space at homes,
and domestic violence. The number of the street children is growing all
the time, for the rising living costs
drive more and more families economically and socially into desperate
situations.
"A child of the street, having no
home but the streets. The family may have abandoned
him or her or may have no family members left alive. Such a child has
to struggle for survival
and might move from friend to friend, or live in shelters such as
abandoned buildings.
A child on the street,
visiting his or her family regularly. The child might even
return everynight to sleep at home, but spends most days and some
nights on the
street because of poverty,overcrowding, sexual or physical abuse at
home;
A part of a street family. Some
children live on the sidewalks or city squares with the
rest oftheir families. Families displaced due to poverty, natural
disasters, or wars may be
forced tolive on the streets. They move their possessions from place to
place when necessary.
The children in these street families work on the streets with
other members of their families.
In institutionalized care,
having come from a situation of home-
lessness and at risk ofreturning to a homeless existence." WHO