Street children are poor 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" 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.
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
Children sleeping in Mulberry Street, New York City, 1890 (Jacob Riis photo)
A street child in Bangladesh
Poverty is a state or condition in which one lacks the financial resources and essentials for a certain standard of living. Poverty can have diverse environmental, legal, social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: absolute poverty compares income against the amount needed to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter; relative poverty measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. The definition of relative poverty varies from one country to another, or from one society to another.
Children of the Depression-era migrant workers, Arizona, United States, 1937
An early morning outside the Opera Tavern in Stockholm, with beggars waiting for scraps from the previous day. Sweden, 1868.
Worlds regions by total wealth (in trillions USD), 2018
A Somali boy receiving treatment for malnourishment at a health facility
