UNICEF charity officials have released startling figures that show some 100 million children are living on the world’s streets. The majority of the number sleeping rough are from the developing world. The majority of these poor souls ages range from 5 to 17 years old, with many of them begging to survive.
In South Africa alone there are some 13,000 children living and working on the streets. The South African government has now launched a new national strategy to comply with the Children’s Act, aimed at caring for street dwellers and their needs for shelter, medicine, food and education. With many of the children roaming the streets alone, this has seem many of them fall into drugs, crime and prostitution, simply as a way to survive the daily pitfalls of life on the street.
South Africa’s Minister of Women, Children and People with Disability, Lulu Xingwana, said –
The strategy also ensures that children who may be addicted, children who may still be very young and even those not so young get relevant care. We have to act to those problems.
Those in South Africa who are identified as problem children will be placed in special programmes to help them recover from the undue stress and suffering they have found from living hand to mouth. The newly developed programmes will also see more children re-united with their families, and where this is not possible, be housed in development centres where they can try and find there feet. Hopefully more countries across the globe will follow South Africa’s lead and step up their fight against child poverty…
100 million children on the world’s streets are praying for it
