Street children: our health and coping strategies when we are sick

Abstract

Millions of street children in both developed and developing countries are left to survive on their own. They are ill-treated, half-starved, ruthlessly abused, exposed to the elements of nature, socially deprived and abandoned and denied affection, education and assistance. Street children often arrive in this dead end with poor health generally. This accrual, in combination with the inconsiderate circumstances of street life, soon contribute to the child's lowered immunity, morbidity, ill health and eventually, the child's exposure to health problems. Street children are one of the new categories of social actors resulting from the rapid urbanisation of cities of the South. Among the numerous problems they have to face daily, there are also obstacles related to disease and access to healthcare. This was a qualitative study conducted from late October to November 2014, on the streets and in market places of Accra. The sample size was fifteen (15) street children selected using a non-random snowball sampling technique.  The findings on the diseases that the street children experience by living and working in the streets of Accra such as injuries and minor accidents could be due to the nature of their work and the environment (hawking goods on the busy streets of the city and carrying heavy loads. The findings of the study indicate that the health conditions of working street children are miserable and majority of the available health services are out of reach of street children and there are multiple obstacles faced by street children in accessing health care services. Various strategies should be applied in bringing about a social change, a major one being “Empowerment”. This can be achieved through activities aimed at providing better economic opportunities through improved vocational and other skills leading to ‘economic empowerment’ of the child and improved savings skills.

Keywords: street children, health, coping strategies, city, Accra