Bangladesh, new survey of 7,200 street children: one in three lives and sleeps in public or open spaces without hygiene and safety

ROME – Most of the street children are boys (82%); about 13% are separated from their families and about 6% are orphans or do not know if their parents are alive. And again: 7% of children sleep alone, while 17% seek protection and comfort by sleeping in pairs or in groups. One out of three (30.4%) of the incidents of violence reported by children occurred during night rest. Street children in Bangladesh face deprivation, extreme poverty, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy and violence, exploitation. Their situation is revealed in detail by the Street Children Survey 2022, published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics with the support of UNICEF.

There are millions of minors living on the street. The survey findings are based on first-hand accounts from a sample of 7,200 children aged between 5 and 17 in risk areas of Dhaka and the country’s eight divisions. Although the report does not contain absolute figures, UNICEF experts fear that the number of children living on the street in Bangladesh could be in the millions. By children living on the street we mean children who spend most of their time away from a roof, in a safe, normal home, both because they live there and for their livelihood, with or without a family. According to the survey, most of these children are boys and most of them end up on the streets due to poverty or looking for work. About 13% are separated from their families and about 6% are orphans or don’t even know if their parents still exist or not. About 30% of Bangladeshi children spend their lives in public spaces without the most basic comforts of life: a bed, a door to close for safety, a toilet. Half of them surveyed by UNICEF sleep with a lot of burlap, pieces of cardboard or plastic or a thin layer of anything between them and the ground.

The findings of the report are shocking. “They tell us not only that the work to be done is urgent, but also that children who live and work on the street need our sympathy and support,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh. A small amount typically sleep alone, while many others seek protection and comfort by sleeping in pairs or groups. One out of three incidents of violence reported by children occurred during their night rest. It is alarming and shameful that the most common perpetrators of abuse and harassment of street children are bystanders: eight out of ten children reported being abused or harassed by pedestrians. “I was saddened by the way people treated us: they threw water on us when we tried to sleep. They called us offensive names,” says 12-year-old Hasib, who lived on the streets before he and his mother came into contact with government social workers who provided him with guidance and support.

They work to make a living. In most cases they are involved in waste collection, in begging or in tea stalls, factories and workshops. These children are at daily risk of injury and violence. A third of the children interviewed said they were injured while working, while half were subjected to violence. Nearly half of working children were forced to start by the tender age of nine. Most of these children work 30 to 40 hours a week for less than 1,000 Taka, or $10, a week.

Over 70% cannot read and write. Three out of four children (71.8%) living on the street cannot read or write, which implies a lifelong disability and negative prospects for the future. More than half of the children interviewed said they fell ill in the three months prior to the investigation, suffering from fever, cough, headache and waterborne disease. Most of the children (79%) were unaware of the support they can receive from organizations that provide services for children living on the street. UNICEF is working with the Government of Bangladesh to invest in more social workers who can help these children live off the streets. At the same time, UNICEF’s vision is for a social worker in every village to protect children from harm and to prevent them from ending up on the streets in the first place.