Microfinance and street children: is microfinance an appropriate tool to address the street children issue ?

3. CAUSES OF THE STREET CHILDREN ISSUE

A common cited reason pushing children to the street is economic poverty (Alexandrescu, 1996; Peacock, 1994; Scheper-Hughes and Hoffman, 1998)^24(*). Indeed, street children are said to move from the household for coping with insecurity and economic hardship (Conticini and al., 2006). For example, a recent UNDP/Government policy paper in Bangladesh (ARISE, 2001)^25(*) indicates poverty as the driving forces that pushes children to the streets, and points out that «the influx of migration could be stopped if sufficient income earning opportunities are created in the rural sector through massive poverty alleviation interventions at the country side» (ARISE, 2001).

Poverty leads therefore some families to send their children to work, and the street appears as a «promise of rewards» (Lucchini, 1997). But, if economic poverty was the only reason, all poor countries in the world would be filled up with street children ; in fact, only a small minority of households in the poorest metropolitan cities account for street children, and they are generally no poorer than their neighbours (Moura, 1997). Other reasons are therefore at the origin of the phenomenon.

Conticini (2004: 6-7), in his study of street children in Dhaka, points out how the majority of children interviewed did leave their villages because of abuse, especially in terms of physical violence and the breakdown of trust within households, and that «analysts and policymakers have so far missed the opportunity of significantly engaging with a growing body of literature that shows the decisive role played by non economic factors in children's decision to migrate to the street». Indeed, considerable evidence tends to show that street children have endured psychological and physical, including sexual abuse (Blanc, 1994 and Moura Castro, 1997).

For example, a study of street children in Nepal (Pradhan, 1990)^26(*) revealed a range of different and mixed reasons:

maltreatment by stepmother, 23%; father's death, 28%; family abandoned by father, 5%; mother's death, 16%; family abandoned by mother, 9%; lack of home/food, 12%; neglect or abuse, 83%; abandoned by family, 5%; attraction to city life, 62%.

Consequently, both economic and non economic factors are part of the equation and, unfortunately, plenty of theories have analysed the causal factors as mutually exclusive (Foy, 2001), and did not consider the complex mixture of factors that pushes and pulls children to the streets.

Lucchini (1997) tries to make some order in this complexity, by building up a multifactoral model, where he defines 3 levels of analysis: macro-, meso-, and microscopic.

§ Factors at the micro (individual) level: escape from an individual situation (hunger, shame, abuse), failure at school, lack of money or feeling unwanted, desire of autonomy, etc.

§ Factors at the meso (family) level: the breakdown or disintegration of the family structure, single-parent families, remarriage, desertion, poverty, child abuse, child neglect, family violence, lack of adequate care, etc.

§ Factors at Macro-level: politics, economy, housing, health and welfare services, unemployment and rapid urbanization.

This multifactoral model does show the complexity of the analysis. Whereas the earlier assumptions identified two causes, poverty and family breakdown, the street children being either «throwaways» or «runaways» the new thinking about street children uses multifactoral models to explain the street children predicament (Ennew and Kruger, 2003; Foy, 2001). Indeed, «most poor families do not break down, nor do they inevitably abandon or discard their children and using simplified models can lead to the stigmatization of children and their families» (Ennew and Kruger, 2003).

Finally, Lucchini (1997) highlights the importance of considering the fact of leaving home as a process, whose length varies according to different parameters.

We therefore witness how the problem is diverse and complex, and needs therefore to be tackled in its complexity.

* ²⁴ Quoted in Conticini and al. (2006)

* ²⁵ Quoted in Conticini (2004)

* ²⁶ Quoted in Leroux and Smith (1998)