Street children: An exploration from the streets of Ghaziabad

Rapid urbanization has resulted in the phenomenon of ‘street children’ which is one of the several categories of ‘urban deprived children’. They are socially excluded and most marginal categories of children across the world, every year thousands of children are pushed to the streets due to several factors but this phenomenon is prevalent more in developing economies. This study investigates the socio-economic life and health issues of children working on the streets of Ghaziabad city, Uttar Pradesh. The Primary data has been used which was collected through a field survey of 50 children found working on the streets. Key findings were- majority of street children were Hindus, a large proportion started working at a very small age, half of them were engaged in street- vending, majority had family ties and were living in slums, and they were facing several health issues.