14 DAY TRIAL // Our society has been shattered, a long time ago, by the appearance of the children of the street. The causes of this phenomenon are extremely complex, involving individual, social, economical and material factors which give birth to some severe cumulative effects like: behavior disorders, aggressiveness, violence, death, sexual abuses and the absence of moral/ cultural values.
The consequences led by these facts are: juvenile delinquency, the spreading of venereal diseases like AIDS, prostitution and a new generation of children born in the streets.
We all transit in order to live and that's what generated an alarming increase in this phenomenon in the last 10 years. It's like the street gives birth to children. The identified general cause is the increase of poverty. Social reforms applied several times are usually accompanied by negative effects that lead to a great rise of inflation and diminish the population's buying power, to the fast growth of the number of unemployed people. Famine, maladies and vulnerability are a reality among 1, 2 billion people who, at the moment, live in almost absolute poverty.
One of the crucial factors that determine a child to leave his family is the parents' indifference concerning his/her moral and intellectual development. Other causes may be the family dissociation through repeated scandals and the excessive authority.
The estimates show that the majority of 'strays' develop in a vicious circle of difficult family conditions like alcoholic parents and drug addicts.
The 'strays' are said to be included in certain categories according to their time spent on the street and to the presence/ absence of family relations:
- Children that live permanently on the streets. These don't have any type of relations with their families, like abandoned children that live in orphanages. - Children that make the street a temporary home, only in certain seasons. They usually come back home in winter. - Street families: children that live in the streets with one or both parents. - Day 'strays': children that walk the streets only in day time, begging or having occasional jobs. These return home in the evening.
The social effects of this problem
Not solving this social dilemma can have extremely serious negative effects, having in mind that these children represent an educational deficit due to the lack of education through schools, the abandon of studies at young ages and to the lowered cultural level of their families.
Generally, these groups of children live in sewers or improvised houses, barracks and in the hallways of blocks. Most of them beg for a living, clean wind shields or carry bags. Many steel and practice prostitution. Their delinquency generates suspicion among the other people and they are regarded as potential aggressors.
In their groups there are dominating positions kept through physical violence- younger children are forced to give their money to the older ones on a daily basis as a protection tax. In other groups, the relations are of cohesion and solidarity.
Many of these children have abandoned the governmental shelters because they couldn't adapt to the social programs elaborated by these institutions.
The 'strays' adopt a pre-delinquent and delinquent behavior due to the situations that they're confronted with in order to feed or have a shelter. Their main source of money is begging. Sexual abuses are very common among them; 'strays' practice prostitution to survive. The first sexual contact takes place at an early age and is usually in the form of a rape. In consequence, they are affected by venereal diseases. From the lack of food, they use inhalation substances, drugs.
All these mentioned above have a strong negative effect on society and the community they live in and that's why this phenomenon must be stopped.