Youth Caught Up In Streets

Today the number of young people roaming  the streets has grown alarmingly. They find themselves in the busy streets and market places. Streets have turned into their homes which hardly provide them with the means for survival. It has become for them the order of the day to go to the busy streets and pick up scraps to sustain themselves. Some turn out to be rag pickers and live from ‘hand to mouth’, while some engage themselves in  other ways of survival which society does not approve. Others take to petty thievery and create chaos and fears to the passers-by. Survival is all that matters for them. Robbing and looting have become the fashion of their lives. In some cases, such behaviour has proved to be fatal to the lives of the people. For this reason many end up in juvenile homes.  

Causes of their plight

There are many reasons that force youn

g people to move to the streets. For the most part it is poverty that proves to be the driving force. Among the village folks and the city slum dwellers it is natural to have a large family. However, the fact is that a large family cannot afford the needs of all the family members. Therefore, an individual usually goes to the streets to sustain himself or herself, his or her family. In city slums especially there are no means of survival unless one is hired to do the menial jobs.

Family atrocity is another cause that forces young people to move to urban cities hoping for better life. It includes forms of harassments such as beating, starvation, abusive language and even threats to one’s life. Orphans are usually treated badly by their step-parents. Young people who look for independence cannot bear up with atrocities towards them especially within the family circle. This is why they move out into the streets. However, unqualified for better job employments, they mess up their lives in the streets with bad company. Some even take to addictions and  substance abuse. For this reason often society tends to look down on them.

Young people in the streets seem to have lost their dignity in the eyes of the public which is never true. Even in the face of rejection and discrimination they long for a better life and they want to come out of their misery. Deep within them, wrapped in their faces, they cry out for help and support which individuals and society as a whole could help lightening their burden.

 Johny Lamare