Socio-Economic Study of Street Children (A Case Study of Ratna Park Area, Kathmandu)

Abstract

The present study entitled Socio-economic Study of Street Children is intendedto find out the major problems of street children and their wages of solution ofKathmandu. The study was conducted within the specially limited area of Ratna Parkand its surrounding areas of Kathmandu. The study was undertaken with the followingproblems: The children of the street are also growing day by day with the increase withtheir problems. The most important problems of street are scarcity and lack of security,education, food, shelter etc. They are exposed to dangerous chemical in the garbageterms and suffered from cronies' illness and infected wounds. The worst from ofproblems of the street children in our society for it treats the street children differentlyand people looks by the eye of heat and calledthem as "KHATE". In the period of research study, there is finding such objectives, as given: to analyze thesocio-economic status of street children in the study area, to identify the majorproblems of the street children, to examine in the cause to increase in numbers of streetchildren, to analyze the Institutional policies and programs on child labor. Interview questionnaire methods and case study methods are used to find out reality ofstreet children on such as their base. The major findings of thestudy are: majority ofstreet were illiterate, No more than 6 percent could cross the primary level, about 72percent were from the age group of 9 to 16. The dominant cause to be illiterate waspoverty. Most of street children were engaged in rack-picking,which was 34.28 percentof total respondents. Remaining 28.57 percent were engaged in begging. In case ofgirls, they were mainly found in domestic work. Most of the street children werepassing their aimlessness lives. They didn't know what will be in future! However therights of child shouldn't undermine by the powerful and responsible authority. Each ofthem must be dedicated for the control and removal of street children and theirburning problems. On the basis of various related literature and direct field survey with street childrenwhat it can conclude that the children in the street have gradual deteriorating socio-physical conditions with numbers of hurdles due to which they are passing aimless andminimize the number is by increasing social awareness.