Socio- Economic Status of Street Children in Butwal municipality City

Abstract

Children who are neglected, abandoned, or orphaned and either beg or collect and sell recyclable goods or work in other similar types of informal sector, and live in streets are called street children. They are usually violated and their rights often neglected and they are to taken care of in any aspect of their lie. They are isolated form the family and society. Nepal especially Butwal city is not an exception to this problem. Hundred of innocent children are seem dwelling on the street of Butwal city. They live in streets. Sell recyclable goods and make the provision for food. No one cares about their education, health, shelter, food and other basic needs. This study is an attempt to assess the condition of these street children. The main objective of this study is to find out the socio economic status of street children in Kathmandu metropolitan city. For the study, well structured, semi structured questionnaires, observation, formal and informal interviews and case study were used as the techniques to obtain required information in order to fulfill the objectives. This study covered 55 street children. Out of whom 49 were boys and 6 girls related from different areas of Butwal municipality city by using cluster sampling About one third of the children (32.73%) had left their home due to maltreatment/abuse as a major cause and the minority of then left their home due to influenced by other. Expectation of better life, poverty conflict death of parents and others. Out of total sampled children only 16.36 percent were literate, whereas parents of only 38.19 of them were reported to be illiterate. A large proportion of the children (41.82%) responded they had an experience of primary level education. Some of them had completed primary level and some had dropped out already. The origins of street children were many. However over 40 percent of them were from the periphery of Butwal. Street children who dwell in Butwal were of various caste and ethnic background but one-fourth of them were (23.64%0 Magar. Of the 55 respondents, 29.09 percent responded that they worked as rag pickers. Similarly more than 16.36 percent of the children were found to be beggars and a small number of the children had adopted other occupations. A large proportion (43.64%) of the children worked 5-8 hours per day and many of them earned sufficient income their daily food, but they spent most part of their income in watching movies, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. The study has also covered such aspects as the street children's age structure, reasons for not joining school, parents being alive or dead, parental, education and occupation and the children's future aspiration, reasons for the leaving previous work, their harassment and exploitation by others and such other facts. Overall, the situation of street children is found to be very vulnerable, this fact, some practical recommendations have been presented so that consideration of these would lead to improvements in the situation of the children that usually are somehow compelled to spend life as street children.