In their faces, a colourless gaping of life’s adversity:
the hopeless grief of their existence;
Malnourished, starving, filth, and olfactory horrors;
Their humiliating nothingness clothed in rags;
Usually barefooted with low self-esteem;
Begging, and searching through refuse
for thrown-away foods to assuage pangs of hunger;
Sleeping or sniffing glue
at the dark corners of the street.
These dispositions identify them to society as
Children Of The Street: The Roofless And Rootless Kids.
The undesirables eke out a living on the streets,
falling prey to all sorts of abusive treatments,
in hostile surroundings where childhood
apparently comes to an end.
They’re menaced by extreme weather conditions:
be it scorching summer heat, severe storms,
or sub-zero winter temperatures.
They belong to nowhere:
home is no longer ‘home sweet home’,
the street provides no comfort, and
the society rejects them with pitiless indifference.
Children Of The Street is a global reality –
a product of the collapse of customary family values;
Death of one parent or both;
Socio-economic, cultural, and other diverse changes
that affect the vulnerable minors negatively.
Left to fend for themselves, they’re deprived
of physical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual development.
Without skills and education,
they’re entangled in a web of poverty
that only few are lucky to breakaway.
They survive on the fringes of social system.
Surrounded by a never-ending vision of misfortune,
vagrant kids are denied
the very essentials of childhood –
for them life is a daily battle to exist.
Unloved, uncared for, and unwanted;
Stomachs plagued with worms,
hair infested with lice,
always cold and sick;
They’re forsaken in their fierce wretchedness.
With no human hands to wipe away tears of bitter pain,
they gnash their teeth in absolute extremities.
Many live and die on the street.
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