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street child

File:Les_Misérables_-_Le_petit_Gavroche.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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street child

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Also known as children of the streets, runaways, street youth, street urchin, guttersnipe, child in street situation, children in street situations, street kid

homeless child living on the street

Research

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Encyclopedic overview

Gavroche, a fictional character in the historical novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, is inspired by the street children who existed in France in the 19th century. Multiethnic group of "street gamins" in Istanbul (then known in English as Constantinople), 1921

Street children are poor and/or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids, or urchins; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policymakers use UNICEF's concept of boys and girls, aged under 18 years, for whom "the street" (including unoccupied dwellings and wasteland) has become home and/or their source of livelihood, and who are inadequately protected or supervised. Street girls are sometimes called gamines, a term that is also used for Colombian street children of either sex.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “street child” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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