Economic issues of street children and their families creating an environment that cause parents to push their children to take to streets

Pages: 284-289
Haroon-ur-Rashid Rana and Hafeez-ur-Rehman Chaudhry (Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad)

The article represent research findings regarding economic issues of street children in Pirwadhai, district Rawalpindi. This study explains that how the economic crunch creating an environment that cause parents to push the children to take to streets for their livelihood or supporting their families. Due to dearth of financial resources the families were unable to provide basic needs to their children. An average Pakistani family consists of five to six (5- 6) persons. With so many mouths to feed the basic human needs are not met and this causes undue rift, anger and frustration amongst the family members. Under the said situation family too is left with no option but to discard their children and push them to the street. Pirwadhai bus station is one of the places that provide ample work opportunity for these children. The street children could aptly be called to have a street personality where perception of the society is generally very negative and labeled the street children as Badmash (deviants) though all of the street children are not deviants. Most of the street children were found hard-working, not only struggle for their own survival but also assist their families in terms of financial support. The study takes into account the level of children’s vulnerability crude everyday realities where day dawns but darkness of abject living conditions prevails.