Risk Behaviors of Street Children in Dhaka City, Bangladesh: A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction

In Bangladesh, a lot of children are suffering from human right deprivation of all forms. Now a busy city of Dhaka about eight million people and one of the most dense populated cities of the world with a geographical area of 303 kilometer divided into 90 wards. In addition they are exposed to severe form of physical and mental violence at home, in the work place, and the public places [1]. ‘The United Nation Convention’ on the Rights of the Child defined the child as a “human being below the age of 18 years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.” UNICEF has classified the street children as: Street living, street working; children from street family. Street children are often termed as “Tokai” in Bangladesh. They are the most vulnerable section of the society. Many children are forced to live and earn on the street due to their distressed situation. Some of them are abandoned children. Most of the street children are immigrants from rural areas mainly for economic reasons. The other reasons are social like uprooted, driven out, abandoned etc. or natural disaster like river erosion. Based on a survey of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies the estimated number of street children in Bangladesh to be around 3, 80,000 of whom 55% are in Dhaka city. Among them 44.2% are below the 10 years old and 74.3% are boys while girls account for 25.7% [2]. In Bangladesh Mortality and morbidity status among the street children has reached on alarming level as a result of hunger and lack of basic health care services [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

Children on the street are engaged in some kind of economic activities ranging from begging to vend. Inhumane treatment is the “norm” for these children. They are extremely vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS [8]. Worldwide this scenario of street children is alarming but is more prevalent in the poor nation of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The major problems of street children are insecure life [4]. Poverty, loss of shelter due to natural calamities are the leading factors that are responsible for a large number of street children get involved in different types of criminal activities [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. Poverty, family disintegration, negligence and social unrest are the leading triggers for a child’s life [14] to be the street. Unfortunately these children are not secured despite efforts made by the government and non- government organization in ensuring the rights of the children.

Methodology

This is a cross sectional descriptive study and the duration of study period is January 2010 to June 2010. The target population is street children of Dhaka city [15, 16]. According to the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, below the age of 18 years old are children, but in this study only six to eighteen years old children had been selected. The selected areas for interview were intercept points like Moghbazar, Khilgaong, Santinagar, Komolapur station area of Dhaka city.

Considering the nature of the study and length of time the sample size was limited to 100, and during data collection the researcher able to interview 100 respondents. The purpose and type of interview were explained to the respondents. Sampling technique was purposive type. An interview schedule was prepared to guide the researcher during interview. It was pre tested among some children. Almost all questions were structured question except a few open ended questions. The interview was in-depth interview. All the collected data was compiled, tabulated and analyzed by the researcher with the help of SPSS program.

Results

Based on the survey questionnaire, the authors demonstrated the results through table and charts.

Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Among the (100) respondents 70% were boys and 30% were girls. Majority (57%) of the respondents was in (15-17) year’s age group of them 35% were boys and 22% were girls. Next major group (6-10) years had 42% street children, among them 32% were boys and 10% were girls (Graph 1).

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Graph 1: Distribution of the respondents by age in groups and Gender. Only 6% respondents were in (16-18) years group, among them 3% were boys and 3% were girls.

Among the (100) respondents, majority (53%) of the adolescent’s parents lived outside the Dhaka city, 42% were in this city. Only 5% parents are dead (Graph 2).

Graph 2: Distribution of the respondents by parent’s residential status. Of the total 60% live alone, 20% with others, 9% with both parents 8% with mother and 3% with their brothers (Graph 3).

Graph 3: Distribution of the respondents by person they live with. Among the respondents 83 respondents were staying alone in Dhaka city. The reason for staying alone concludes that 19.3% left their house as they were beaten, for step parents, 3.6% did not like to go school, 14.4% to earn money, 15.7% no one to take care , 14.5% for the poverty, 4.8% came with friends , 1.1% came with relative, and 3,6% for the other reasons (Graph 4).

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Graph 4: Distribution of the respondents by the reason they left their parents. Majority (22%) slept at railway station, 17% at footpath, 16% have no specific space for sleeping, 6% at night shelter, 6% in the park, 7% at the launch terminal, 4% office verandah, 4% with the family, 2% in the market place and the rest 1% in other places (Graph 5).

Graph 5: Distribution of the respondents by sleeping status at night. Among the respondents 46% worked for 5 to 8 hours, 44% worked for 1-4 hours and 10% respondents worked for about 9 hours (Graph 6).

Graph 6: Distribution of respondents by working hours.

Personal Hygiene Related Behaviors

About 57% of the respondents do not wash hand before meals, while 18% do and 25% is irregular in this habit (Graph 7).

Graph 7: Distribution of the respondents by practicing washing hands before meal. Washing of hands after toilet, showed that majority (81.1%) do not wash hands after toilet, 10.5% washes hands after toilet and 8.4% was irregular in this habit (Graph 8).

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Graph-8: Distribution of the respondents by washing hand after toilet. Distribution of the respondents by habit of eating waste food; showed that 10% of them do not eat waste foods, 38% sometimes and 52% had the habit of eating waste food (Graph 9).

Graph 9: Distribution of the respondents by habit of eating wasted food. In case of source of drinking water majority (84%) drink whatever available, only 16% are being habituated of drinking supply water (Graph 10).

Graph 10: Distribution of the respondent by source of drinking water.

Discussion

UNICEF defines street children as those who are of the street and on the street. In this study the, term street children refer to those children of 6 to 18 years of age who earn their living on the streets and stay there for most of the time. They may or may not have parents or legal guardians. This cross sectional study was conducted among the street children of Dhaka city with the objectives to determine the magnitude of risk behaviors among them. Data was collected by face to face interview using semi-structured questionnaires [18, 19]. The study showed that the parents of the 53% respondents live outside Dhaka city. The main reasons they left their parents were poverty, presence of step parents, for earning money, run away with friends and physically abused by family members. Natural disasters, river erosion, flood, famine and rising water level affect most of the children of poor and marginalized families. A large number of children are driven to the capital city and other towns for their survival as they face immense suffering due to broken family and natural calamities and take shelters in the streets in different cities and towns. Many of these vulnerable street children are being picked up by criminals for keeping arms, throwing bombs at targets, selling drugs, and pilferage of food grains for small amount of money. These children also adopt new techniques such as asking monetary help from the passersby in the name of treatment for their sick family members. Often they spoil the money earned through hard labour by taking drugs. The major problem of the street children are insecure life and physical and sexual abuse by adults of the immediate community. Poverty, family disintegration, negligence, abuse or abandonment and social unrest are the common triggers for a child’s life through on the streets and becoming vulnerable to all forms of exploitation and abuse. Mortality and morbidity status among the street children reached on alarming level due to lack of basic health care services. They remain beyond health care facilities. The disadvantaged street children are most vulnerable to various complicated diseases because of overcrowding, poor environmental status and unhygienic food stuffs. Hunger compels the street children to take most odd jobs and even criminal activates. So an alarming incidence of negative mental and physical health outcomes like depressed anxiety and greater level of antisocial and violent behaviors has been observed. The study revealed that most of the street children had the experience of being abused by family members, other relatives, police or mastans. Other than police the street mastans regularly abused them and took away their hard earned money by threatening them. In fact people in our society are not much concerned about the addiction among street children because they are keep out of sight and so are out of mind. The direct impact of the problem is that by neglecting these children, who will soon become adolescents and teens, Bangladesh will lose a portion of her young work force, we will lose our potential resources and they will become a national burden. Consistent abuse and inhumane treatment are the norm for the street children. They are extremely vulnerable to sexually transmitted disease including HIV/AIDS. Bangladesh has a high prevalence of STDs which in turn increasing the vulnerability to HIV infection. Therefore, it is required to take preventive steps for these unfortunate children.

Conclusion

Among the urban people in Dhaka city, street children are the most vulnerable. They are surviving by recycling rubbish, begging, or doing any of odd jobs that would earn them some food. Children’s rights are at best ignored and at worst trampled upon through indifference, economic exploitation, and sexual and physical abuse. The finding of this study suggests that the street children are extremely vulnerable in terms of their health needs and health care. They are practicing an unhygienic life style. They are most vulnerable to diseases and adverse environmental conditions, with no assistance or guidance on how to maintain a well balanced diet.

Street children are often exposed to, and have easy access to non-prescriptive drugs, such as alcohol, tobaccos, sniffing glue/petrol--- they use this substance to relieve hunger and this lead to malnutrition [20, 21, 22, 23]. Exploitation, harassment, and abuse, both physical and verbal including sexual abuse are the major sufferings of the street children. Poverty pushes them many anti-social and violent activities.