Abuses Against Street Children

There is no way to thoroughly enumerate the various ways in which children around the world are economically exploited and physically mistreated. But the numbers are great and the suffering widespread. Behind the hideous imagery of children beaten or sexually abused by parents; ravaged beyond their years by hard living and drug abuse on the streets; maimed by landmines or turned into killers by war; stricken with AIDS are the all too common struggles against disease, hardship, and family or social traditions that compromise children’s humanity or subject them to physical and emotional suffering. While 18 million children work on the streets of India, it is estimated that only 5-20 percent of them are truly homeless and disconnected from their families.