Providing Sustainable Supports for Street Children in Nigeria:Stakeholders Challenges and the Policy Options Available

doi:10.4236/aasoci.2013.33023

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Advances in Applied Sociology

2013. Vol.3, No.3, 172-177

Published Online July 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/aasoci) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aasoci.2013.33023

172

Providing Sustainable Supports for Street Children in Nigeria:

Stakeholders Challenges and the Policy Options Available

Joshua Oyeniyi Aransiola

Sociology and Anthropology Department, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Received May 27th, 2013; revised June 26th, 2013; accepted July 3rd, 2013

Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

This article examines the limitations of all stakeholders in providing support for street children in Nigeria

in the face of continuous increase in their number with a view to identify possible policy options in the

light of inabilities of the stakeholders to adequately support the children. Qualitative research techniques

were employed to collect the primary data from NGOs, community members and government agencies

saddled with the responsibility of caring for the children. It was found that the stakeholders are incapable

of addressing the problems of street children due to inadequate skills, lack of necessary facilities and

stakeholders working in parallels among others. It emphasizes the need for collaboration among stake-

holders to enjoy the benefit of synergy while there is also need to embark on capacity development for all

the stakeholders in order to make meaningful progress and the situation of the street children improved in

the country.

Keywords: Street Children; Social Supports; Child Rights

Background

Street children phenomenon is one of the gravest forms of

child abuse raising concern at the global level in the past few

decades. Bourdillon (2001) noted that when we see children

neglected on the street, we should be worried about what this

means for the future of our society. When we see young chil-

dren fighting with knives, we should be worried about how

violent they will be when they grow up. This has led to the

increasing concern on how to provide adequate and sustainable

supports to children working and/or living on the streets so that

they can live better quality life and consequently contribute

positively to the modern societies (Oloko, 1999; Scanlon, Tom-

kins, Lynch, & Scanlon, 1998; UNICEF, 2012; Vasino, 1990).

According to Oloko (1999), Le Roux (1993) and Keen

(1990), the factors which push children out of their homes vary

from physical maltreatment and emotional problems, to be sent

out of the home because of misdemeanors or family breakup

and financial problems. UNFPA (2003) noted that increase mi-

gration to urban areas with associated problems like over-

crowding, high unemployment, poverty, family dispersal and

the impacts of HIV/AIDS have also contributed to increase in

the number of street children in the recent times.

According to UNICEF (2002) and UNICEF (2007) the chil-

dren’s earliest experiences within the family and with other

caregivers significantly influence the future course of their

development. The way in which children develop determines

whether they will make a net contribution or pose a huge cost to

society over the course of their lives. Hence, as part of the ef-

forts targeted at improving the situation of the children across

different countries, the United Nations made the declaration of

its Convention on the rights of the child 1989 which intended to

prompt all state parties to take actions in addressing various

problems confronting the children including street children

phenomenon.

The African Union (formerly Oganisation of African Unity)

(1999) also noted with concern that “the situation of most Afri-

can children, remains critical due to the unique factors of their

socio-economic, cultural, traditional and developmental cir-

cumstances, natural disasters, armed conflicts, exploitation and

hunger, and on account of the child’s physical and mental im-

maturity he/she needs special safeguards and care”. It further

recognizes the fact that “the child occupies a unique and privi-

leged position in the African society and that for the full and

harmonious development of his personality, the child should

grow up in a family environment in an atmosphere of happiness,

love and understanding”. Thus, in an attempt to entrench the

rights of the child in African societies, it declared a Charter on

the Rights and Welfare of the Child 1999.

In Part 1 Article 1:1, the charter provided that member States

of the Organization of African Unity (now African Unity) shall

recognize the rights, freedoms and duties enshrined in the

Charter and shall undertake to the necessary steps, in accor-

dance with their Constitutional processes and with the provi-

sions of the present Charter, to adopt such legislative or other

measures as may be necessary to give effect to the provisions of

this Charter” while it considers any human being below the age

of 18 years as a child in Article 2:1. The Act therefore becomes

a foundation, on which each country in Africa can build their

legal instruments to guarantee the rights of the child. In re-

sponse to this, 45 of the 53 African countries have signed and

ratified the Act while various African countries have also en-

J. O. ARANSIOLA

acted laws to protect the rights of the Child. For instance, The

Parliament of the Republic of Ghana (1998) enacted the Chil-

dren’s Act 560 1998, while The Parliament of Kenya (2001)

enacted children’s Act 8 in 2001among others.

In line with these developments at the global and continental

levels, the Federal Government of Nigeria (2003) promulgated

a Child Rights Act in 2003 and there are many programmes

emerging for the support of street children in Nigeria. These

programmes include the provision of support in the area of

feeding, clothing, housing, medical care and education. These

events marked significant landmarks in ameliorating the prob-

lems of street children in the country.

In Nigeria, remand homes which is one of the units under the

Social welfare department is the government agency dealing

with children’s problems and since the promulgation of the

Nigerian Child Rights Acts 2003, the unit had been saddled

with the responsibilities of addressing the needs of delinquent

children including the street children in Nigeria. The unit has

major offices in all the state capitals across the country with

other offices in all major towns across the federation. There are

also some NGOs and Civil Society organisations working to

support the street children across many cities in Nigeria.

Despite all these efforts, the problem of street children seems

unabated while it is becoming a permanent feature of the Nige-

rian societies. While efforts have been made to assess the chal-

lenges leading to increase in the number of street children

(Aransiola, Bamiwuye, Akinyemi, & Ikuteyijo, 2009; Fitz-

gibbon, 2003), the coping strategies of the children on the

streets (Aransiola & Agunbiade, 2009; Malindi & Theron, 2010;

Mizen & Ofosu-Kusi, 2010; Oduro, 2012), the network of sup-

ports from street children’s perspectives in Nigeria (Aransiola

& Agunbiade, 2009; Faloore, 2009) and the attitudes of these

children to the supports available for them (Aransiola & Akin-

yemi, 2010), there has not been any effort to assess the prob-

lems and limitations confronting the stakeholders in providing

supports for the children. Therefore the focus of this article is to

assess the problems and limitations confronting the stake-

holders in providing adequate, attractive and sustainable sup-

ports to the children with a view to identify workable and sus-

tainable policy options. The objectives of this article therefore

are to:

1) Examine the problems and challenges of all the stake-

holders in providing support for street children in Nigeria; and

2) Identifying possible policy options in the light of inabil-

ities of the stakeholders to adequately support the children.

Methods

This study was conducted in Lagos, Kaduna and Port Har-

court located in three different locations with different cultural

orientations in Nigeria. The study was carried out in the cities

of Lagos, Kaduna and Port Harcourt, which are three of the

locations where street children are largely concentrated in Ni-

geria. The selected cities reflect the three main cultural diversi-

ties in Nigeria. Lagos is located in the south-western part of

Nigeria on the narrow coastal plain of the Bight of Benin. Al-

though, predominantly a Yoruba town, there is no other ethnic

group in Nigeria that is not found in the city being the comer-

cial heart of Nigeria and street children were physically present

across different areas of the town.

Kaduna town was founded by the British in 1913 and later

became the capital of Nigeria’s former Northern Region from

1917 to 1967. It is one of the most important political centre and

important commercial centre in Northern Nigeria. There were so

many quranic schools in the town just like a typical Northern

Cities and street children from these schools and other sources

were in their thousands on the street of the town. On the other

hand, Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, is the heart of the

hydrocarbon industry and is responsible for a huge chunk of the

nation’s foreign exchange earnings. The town is Nigeria’s sec-

ond busiest seaport and has a busy international airport with

regular links to all parts of the country and major cities of the

world. It is the second largest commercial and industrial centre

in Nigeria. Street children were also physically present in the

town in their thousands and this has been constantly linked to the

activities of the oil industries which have led to high poverty

situation among its inhabitants.

In each of the selected cities, the government agency as rep-

resented by the Social Welfare Department, Non-Governmental

Organisations, Other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and

the Community members were focused as key stakeholders.

Although the street children themselves are important key

stakeholders, they were not focused in this study because their

assessments and attitudes towards the supports networks avail-

able for them have been covered in earlier articles (Aransiola,

Agunbiade, Ikuteyijo, & Bamiwuye, 2009; Aransiola & Akin-

yemi, 2010 respectively). Five Key Informant interviews were

conducted in each of the cities selected for this study. These

include two key government officials which were combined

with observations of the facilities in the remand homes and

three civil society organization leaders such as a church leader,

an imam and a lawyer. In each study location, three (3) NGOs

were purposively selected based on the services they render for

the street children and semi-structured interview were con-

ducted with at least one representative of each of the NGOs.

The interview guide comprises of the NGOs’ their mission

mandate, reasons for supporting the streets children and the

kinds of supports they provide for the street children. It also

includes questions on the sources of their funding, the facilities

they have and the problems they encounter in supporting the

street children. Six Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were

conducted in each of the communities with different categories

of community members namely; opinion leaders (male and

female) (two), adult (male and female) (two), and youth (male

and female) (two). Each FGD group will have eight to 12 par-

ticipants. Each FGD included between 8 and 12 participants.

The FGD participants were selected in the same neighbour-

hoods with the street children in order to ensure that data were

collected from community members who have adequate knowl-

edge about the children.

The qualitative data collected using Focus Group Discus-

sions and in-depth interviews were analyzed using content

analysis carried out with the help of the Text Base Beta Com-

puter software. Data were carefully edited before importing it

into the computer software. The data were then coded and

sorted thematically according to the research objectives. The

data from the content analysis were then presented using the

ZY index tables.

Characteristics of the Stakeholders

The characteristics of the stakeholders included in this study

are described here. The FGD participants’ age across the three

locations ranged between 25 and 75 years and included opinion

J. O. ARANSIOLA

174

leaders; males and females, adult; males and females, and youth;

males and females (see Table 1). Each FGD group included

both educated and uneducated members of the communities

while there were more Muslims than Christians among the

FGD participants in Kaduna as against more Christians than

Muslims among the FGD participants in Lagos and Port Har-

court. This is expected because it is in line with the religion

dominating in each region of the country.

The age category of the key informants was between 40 and

62 years out of which there were three government officials

(one from each study location) from Social Welfare Department

at least in the rank of Social welfare officers. There were also

three church leaders, three Imam and three lawyers (1 from

each study locations per category). In total, twelve (12) key

informants were selected for this study (four in each location)

out of which five were Muslims and seven were Christians. All

the key informants had at least secondary school education.

The nine NGOs that were selected for this study are Millen-

nium Hope Programme (MHP), Human Development Founda-

tions in Nigeria (HDF) and Save the child Foundation (SCF),

from Kaduna. In Lagos they include Christian Charity Organi-

sation (CCO), Missionaries of Charity (Sisters of Mother

Theresa) (MC) and Defence for children, International (DCI)

while those included in Port Harcourt are The Adolescent Pro-

ject (AP), Home for Street Children (HSC), SOCA Foundation,

Nigeria (SOCAF). Most of the NGOs are membership NGOs

while two were own by the wife of the State Governors of re-

spective states. The sources of finance of the NGOs also re-

vealed that most of them rely on donations from foundations,

philanthropists, and personal resources. Only very few of these

NGOs are assisted by the government and corporate organiza-

tions, while in most cases, they rely on international donour

organizations.

Results

Government Agencies Problems and Limitations in

Supporting the Street Children

The government agency as represented by the Social Welfare

Department has a mandate to give succour to members of the

community with social problems. It is assumed that the Social

Welfare Department should have concerns for the Welfare of

the street children. Data from key informants also revealed that

the government through the Social Welfare Department has

some programmes for the street children. The programmes in-

clude the provision of shelter, food, education, health services

and vocational training among others, for the children with so-

cial problems including the street children. The extent to which

the Department is fulfilling the mission mandate is however

questionable. Evidence from this study revealed that most of

the remand homes where the children were kept were very

scanty with few children while the observation of the facilities

revealed that the homes were not in good conditions to properly

support the children. For instance, the environments of some of

the homes were unhygienic and dirty while the homes were not

well protected with mosquito nets. There were no constant sup-

ply of portable water and electricity while all of the facilities

were short staffed (having 3 to 4 staff) and with little or no

vocational training facilities.

In addition, some of the staff in the remind homes have not

attended any training relating to handling of delinquent children

while some have been serving with the department for more

than 10 years without regular training. Most of the Officers in

charge of the homes also complained of insufficient funding

for the few children. Hence the children could not be given

the best quality services as they ought to. It was also revealed

that the practices in the homes were dominated by traditional

punitive methods of correcting the children. It was therefore not

surprising that the officers complained that some children do

escape from the homes for street life. A key informant af-

firmed:

“Some children sometimes run away from the centre (Re-

mand home). When you look for them and bring them

back they escape again. We are short staffed also. In this

centre we are only three and the work is enormous for us”.

(Key Informant, Government Agency, Kaduna)

In the same vein a community member has this to say about

the government agencies:

“The programmes of the Social Welfare Department are

not well designed in a way to attract the street children.

The programme emphasizes punitive measures as a means

of rehabilitating the street children. They see Approved

Schools as a prison yard. Hence, many street children

usually run away from government approved schools. I

think that, if the programmes are designed to be attractive,

it will be more productive than the way it is now”. (FGD

with Opinion Leaders, Lagos)

Non-Govermental Organisations (NGOs) and Other

Civil Society Organisations’ (CSOs) Challenges in

Supporting the Street Children

Over the years NGOs have been very active in developmen-

tal issues across different nations and they have been consid-

ered as active and important partners by development partners

across the globe. According to Micheal (2002), “NGOs as one

of the most visible sets of actors in the related fields of human

development and human rights, can play a significant role in

helping to achieve human security. NGOs are especially well

Table 1.

The focus groups involved in the study.

Males Females

Male opinion leaders, 55 - 65 years

(3 groups, 1 each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

Female opinion leaders, 45 - 60 years

(3 groups, 1each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

Young males, 23 - 30 years

(3 groups, 1 each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

Young females, 22 - 32 years

(3 groups, 1each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

Adult males 35 - 75 years

(3 groups, 1 each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

Adult females, 36 - 71 years

(3 groups, 1each in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt)

J. O. ARANSIOLA

suited to action for human security because of their size and

reach, closeness to local populations, willingness to confront

the status quo, and ability to address transnational threats

through coalition-building”. Hence, in addressing the problem

of street children, the role of local NGOs cannot be over-em-

phasized. In this study, selected local NGOs were asked for the

challenges confronting them in supporting the street children in

Nigeria. Evidence from the study revealed that the NGOs do

provide shelter, feeding, clothing, educational materials and

scholarships for some children including street children. They

however noted that in reality, the impact of these supports on

the street children was minimal because of problems confront-

ing their effective operations.

Apart from very few NGOs that exist in this sector, most of

them were faced with lack of funds as Nigerian government

rarely support them and they rely solely on personal resources,

donations from willing individuals/organisations and occasional

grant from international agencies. Most of the NGOs also had

very poor infrastructures. In fact, many of them were faced with

the problem of viability and sustainability as they were located

in rented apartment contrary to the Nigerian government condi-

tion for their registration which mandates an NGO to have its

own building. Most of the NGOs in this study did not fulfill this

condition (see Table 2).

It was also evidenced in this study that most of the NGOs

were poorly staffed with some having as few as 2 staff and

others at most having 7 staff members. In addition to this, most

of the staff (more than 90%) did not have any previous training

related to handling of delinquent children. Hence, they com-

plained of little achievements especially in the area of rehabili-

tation and re-integration of the children, which should be the

main focus of any programme targeting the street children. For

instance, only 3 of the NGOs claimed to have been able to suc-

cessfully rehabilitate few street children while only 1 of them

was able to re-integrate such children with their families (Table

3). An NGO official affirmed;

“The kind of work we do is enormous and requires a lot of

money. You know how much it could cost to maintain a

street child, giving him/her food, shelter, clothing, educa-

tion and so on and the resources is not forth coming as

such. Also, if the resources are coming as it should, there

is need for so many people to share the vision to assist

them. So there is need for many more NGOs providing

support for street children because the population is in-

creasing every day”. (NGO Official, Port Harcourt)

When other Civil Society Organizations such as the religious

bodies were interviewed, it was evident that they also provide

some assistance to the street children but the extent to which

such assistance was satisfying the needs of the children could

not be ascertained. This is partly because most of the assis-

tances were rendered by individual members of such organisa-

tions in uncoordinated manner except in the case of one of such

organisations which channeled the assistance through a NGO in

their area. For instance, a key informant noted that:

“Arms giving is part of Islamic tenets and we preach it

and practice it every Fridays after the usual Jumat service

especially for the less privileged including the street chil-

dren”. (In-depth Interview with Imam, Kaduna)

Table 2.

Facilities of the NGOs.

Kaduna Lagos Port Harcourt

Facilities

MHP HDF SCF CCO MC DCI AP HSC SOCAF

Accommodation for street children + + + − − − + + −

Vocational training centre + − + − + − + + −

Own building/office complex + − − − + − + − −

Rented apartment − + + + − + − + +

Note: + = where the facilities exist; − = where the facilities does not exist.

Table 3.

Achievements of the NGOs.

Kaduna Lagos Port Harcourt

MHP HDF SCF CCO MC DCI AP HSC SOCAF

Rehabilitation of street children + − − − + − + − −

Re-integrated some street children with families − − − − + − − − −

Provision of Shelter for street children + + + + + − + + −

Feeding of street children + + + + + − + + +

Sponsored street children’s education + + + + + + + + +

Payment of hospital bills for street children + − + − + − + + −

Note: + = where the achievements were made; − = where the achievements were not made.

J. O. ARANSIOLA

Whereas another key informant said that:

“In my church, we occasionally contribute money for the

needy in the society including the street children and give

such contribution to the NGOs supporting them but more

importantly, we preach every time to our members on the

importance of giving arms and I know some members who

are actually doing it”. (In-depth interview with Pastor,

Lagos)

It was evidenced however that most of the assistance given to

the street children were to satisfy their immediate needs to the

neglect of more life impacting needs like education, health

services and accommodation, while the extent to which this

immediate needs were satisfied cannot even be ascertained.

Community Members Supports for Street Children

The community members are important stakeholders in re-

solving the problem of the street children because the street

children phenomenon is a product of the society ills and the

community members are the closest among all the stakeholders

to these children. They interact with the children on daily basis

and may be assumed to have a lot of information about these

children. In this study therefore, efforts were made to under-

stand the kind of assistance rendered to the street children by

the community members and their limitations of supporting the

children. Evidence from FGDs with community members show

that there was a mixed feeling towards the street children at the

community level. While some community members expressed

that they do give some assistance to the street children, other

are highly skeptical and have a feeling of apathy towards the

children, yet some others are very careful on the type of assis-

tance given as they believe that it could result to their conflict

with security agents. For instance, the common assistance men-

tioned by the community members includes food, money, un-

used clothes and other unused materials. Concrete and other life

impacting assistance such as accommodation, education and

health care services are rarely or even not given at all. They

further reiterated that many of those who pretend to give such

assistance are only using the medium to further exploit the

children. A participant expressed that:

“I pity the street children because many of them are vic-

tims of circumstances. I do give them some unused mate-

rials and food occasionally because they have no other

option to live more quality life than they are living and

their future is bleak”. (FGD with Youth males, Kaduna)

While another participants said that:

“Although as a human being, when you see some of the

children you are moved to give some assistance but again

you must be careful the kind of assistance you give. If you

accommodate the child, the police can charge you for

abduction if any query should arise. If a street child is

sick and in a dangerous situation that need quick inter-

vention and you take him/her to hospital, you could be

arrested if the sickness get worse or the child eventually

died. The police might say that you are responsible for the

harm or death of the child”. (FGD with Adult Women,

Lagos)

Discussions and Policy Options

This study examined the problems confronting the stake-

holders in providing supports to the street children in Nigeria

based on the spot observations and interviews with relevant key

informants.

The Social Welfare Department as the government agency in

the best position to help the street children in line with the Ni-

gerian Child Rights Act 2003 could not do so due to series of

problems confronting the unit. Apart from the fact that the De-

partment had inadequate number of staff, they were also not

equipped with adequate skills to help the children while the

condition of the remand homes were also not conducive for the

children. It was therefore not surprising that the children con-

stantly escape back to the street. There is therefore the need to

urgently increase the number of staff in the remand homes for

better performance and provide up to date vocational training

facilities. There is also the need for immediate and constant

training of all the staff in the remand homes to better equip

them on how to help the delinquent children especially the

street children while new employees into the Department

should be sent for training no matter of their academic qualifi-

cations. The practice in the remand homes visited was still been

dominated by traditional punitive methods for correcting the

children which is contrary to the spirit of the Convention for the

Rights of the Child 1989 and the Nigerian Child Rights Act

2003. Nigerian government therefore needs to show more com-

mitment to the international and local treaties by overhauling

the Social welfare Department in line with changes at the global

level. There is also the need to increase the allocation to this

sector and institute adequate tracking methods to ensure that the

money allocated are judiciously used. All these will enhance

the condition of the remand homes and position them better to

be able to help the children.

It is evident in this article that the NGOs working in the area

of Child Rights and Welfare were very few in Nigeria while the

few NGOs were also confronted with series of problems. These

include lack of finance while they also have few staff, most of

who were not trained on how to handle delinquent children. It is

therefore important for these staff to be regularly trained for

better performance. This calls for the need for international

agencies funding these NGOs, to include capacity development

training for the NGOs staff in a way to enhance their perform-

ances. It is also important for the NGOs to collaborate more

with the other Civil Society Organisations in order to maximize

the resources from them for better results. For instance, the

opportunity of regular arms giving after Friday Jumat services

in some mosques can be maximized by the NGOs. At present,

the resources are given to the less privileged including street

children directly by the individuals after the prayer, some of

whom may not be able to use the resources judiciously espe-

cially, the children. If the NGOs can collaborate with the reli-

gious leaders to properly channel the resources, it will have

more impact than the way the arms giving are presently been

operated. Earlier studies affirm the importance of NGOs-com-

munity collaboration in intervention and developmental pro-

grammes (Barkin & Bouchez, 2002; Ron, 1999). The NGO can

incorporate members of the community and religious leaders as

well as civil society organisations into their programmes tar-

geting the street children for effective collaboration.

Although the community members as one of the stakeholders

do assist the street children, the assistance given to these chil-

dren is unreliable and in uncoordinated way while its extent of

meeting the needs of the children could not be ascertained.

Many community members are also skeptical of helping the

176

J. O. ARANSIOLA

street children because of the negative consequences. There is

therefore the need for NGOs to work through the community

leaders in enlightening the community members and working

with them to support the street children. Since the registered

NGOs cannot be harassed by the police or any security agents

as they will deal with individual community members, it be-

comes important for the NGOs to work with these willing com-

munity members to maximize the resources and assistance from

them for better results.

Finally, at present indications emerged that all the stake-

holders supporting the street children in Nigeria are working in

parallel with one another. It is therefore important for all the

stakeholders to collaborate. The collaboration of the Social

Welfare, NGOs and the community members is very important

in the light of the fact that Nigeria continue to manifest the

features of a weak state, and has been constantly not able to

properly implement many beautifully designed programmes

and policies of which the Nigerian Child Rights Act 2003 is

one. This collaboration could allow the NGOs as well as com-

munity members to have active roles to play in the running of

the Social Welfare Department especially the Remand home

system where the street children are kept, thereby improving

the quality of service and providing a medium for the commu-

nity members who are skeptical of assisting the children to play

active role in supporting them.

Limitations

This is a qualitative assessment of the stakeholders’ chal-

lenges in supporting the street children in three major cities in

Nigeria. Caution should be taken to generalize the findings on

the entire country since the aim of qualitative research is not to

generalize. It however gives useful insights into in-depth of the

problems confronting the stakeholders. Research efforts are

needed towards a more comprehensive survey of these stake-

holders across significant numbers of urban cities in Nigeria

since data from only three urban centres may not provide the

most useful information for intervention. This article however

point to areas

Conclusion

Based on the evidence in this paper it can be concluded that

given the present condition of all the stakeholders supporting

the street children in Nigeria, they are incapable of addressing

the problems of street children in the country. There is therefore

a need to change the strategy from working in parallel to col-

laborating together to enjoy the benefit of synergy while the

international NGOs also need to embark on capacity develop-

ment for all the stakeholders if they are to make meaningful

progress and the situation of the street children reversed in the

country.

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