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Changemakers from the streets: advocating for children’s rights

“We live in a situation which is really different from most people. While the street is just a path to work for others, it is our home,” Priya* said. “If you do not live here, it is hard to understand the realities we face every day.”

A typical day for Priya, 17, and Rani*, 18, starts early in the morning. Like many children and young people in their mega-city, Kolkata, India, the two friends wake up to the sounds of bustling streets and get ready for the day. They clear away their sleeping spots and remove the plastic sheets they hung up the night before to protect them from the rain.

“There are a couple of schools nearby and, when kids arrive, their parents sometimes scowl at us, telling us to move along,” Rani said. The girls usually respond with a shrug and continue their chores before they get ready for school.

“While others may scowl at us since we are taking up a space that does not belong to us, we also feel that belonging to the streets gives us a sense of freedom and power, knowing that we have the capability to overcome any kind of challenges that we may face, with the help of our police uncles, teachers and healthcare providers,” she added.

Priya studies in Class 11 in a renowned school in Kolkata. Rani is also in Class 11 but in an English Medium School in her locality. After their lessons end for the day, usually around 2 p.m., the girls have lunch and spend time with their friends on the street, keeping an eye out for bikes and cars and watching over their younger siblings so that they are safe while playing on the street,” Rani explained.

In the evening, just after finishing their school tasks, the girls sometimes help their parents who run stalls at the roadside calculate their earning. They also help their siblings and younger children in their community with their studies and, on specific days, especially the weekends, they conduct meetings with their peers so they can think of solutions to the challenges they face. They wait for the people who work in the neighbourhood to return home and clear the streets, so they can finally have the streets to themselves and settle down for the night.

Priya and Rani do not have a home to return to at nighfall. Like countless children around the world, they have a strong connection to the street - it is where they live, where their parents work and where they spend time with their peers.

Each year, half of the world’s children experience violence, which remains a daily occurrence for street-connected children, including in the ‘wealthiest’ nations. Because of economic inequality, children leave their homes to find work to support their families. The street might feel safer for children who are running away from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. Others may be forced to leave their homes and communities ending up in street situations because of conflict, famine, or even natural disasters.

Advocating for their peers
Unlike many of their peers in street situations, Priya and Rani go to school every day. Both attend private schools where their yearly tuition fees and school supplies are paid by their families’ income and supplemented by an NGO. What they learn in school the girls, in turn, share with their friends in their community who cannot acquire a formal education.

Child in Need Institute (CINI), is a non-governmental organization that, for the past 50 years, has worked with children from the most vulnerable communities in India. CINI promotes a democratic peer-leadership process to integrate adolescent centrality and intersectionality to prevent inequalities and discrimination within families, communities, systems, and policies.

Thus, each community has children’s group and both Priya and Rani have emerged as leaders and are called Street Champions. They have become role models in their community and advocates for children who aspire to have their say in the decisions that are made about them at the community, national and international levels.

At the end of October 2024, they participated in a satellite event to address violence against street-connected children to the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence against Children in Bogota, Colombia.

“The greatest challenge faced by children in street situations is being recognized and treated as rights-holders, having the same rights as any other children, and dealing with the perceptions of those around them and the treatment they are consequently afforded,” Imma Guerras, Chief of the Child and Youth Rights Unit at UN Human Rights, said at the conference.

“It is important to change the narrative from victim to actor, changemaker,” she added. “Children engage in numerous activities on the street and, if there is a ‘problem’, it is not the child, but rather it is the system that fails to support the child.”

In 2017, after having conducted consultations with over 300 children in 32 countries, the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations. The document offers comprehensive guidance to States on how to implement the rights of children who are in street situations, under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The General Comment addresses the complex causes, unique needs and rights protections required for children who spend a substantial amount of time in streets or lack secure family environments.

Like any other child, street-connected children have the right to access education and adequate housing, to be protected from abuse and exploitation, to benefit from physical and mental health services, to have access to justice, and to express their views and opinions, the document states.

The Committee recommends that children in street situations actively participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives, including by involving them in designing policies, programs and services meant to address their needs. It also advises States against criminalizing children for being in street situations or for behaviours associated with survival in such settings, and to adopt laws and policies to protect their rights and focus on support rather than punitive measures. Further, the Committee encourages international cooperation to address transnational factors contributing to street situations, such as migration, trafficking, and cross-border poverty.

Overall, General Comment No. 21 calls for a compassionate, rights-centred approach that addresses both immediate needs and long-term systemic changes to empower children in street situations. It emphasizes the importance of inclusive policies, non-discrimination, protection, participation, and access to services to improve these children’s quality of life and uphold their rights.

At the event, Priya and Rani urged the Indian government and local authorities to include children in the decisions that concern their lives.

“We know the challenges we meet daily, and we can help the adults find solutions to protect us and to support us,” Priya said. “At night, when we are trying to sleep, we often face various kinds of danger - we are most vulnerable at the time, and sometimes passersby touch us inappropriately while we're resting. We deserve safety while we sleep, just like everyone else.”

Both girls believe there should be child-friendly spaces where their rights are respected and supportive environments that will protect them from violence where they could ask for help, without the fear of being separated from their families. “When we speak about these issues, people tell us to go and stay at children's homes, but we have families who love and care for us. We want to stay with our parents, siblings and grandparents like any other children who have a roof over their heads,” Priya added.

For UN Human Rights, the opinion of street-connected children, like Priya and Rani, should inform policies, plans and interventions designed to address their needs, Guerras said.

“We alone may not be able to address the violence that we encounter in our lives, but, together, we can make a change. We know that alone we may find it hard to face violence in our lives,” Rani said. “It is overwhelming at times and we often feel powerless. But with support and collaboration, we believe meaningful change is possible … We want to be part of the solution.”

* Not their real names.