PATTERNS OF MIGRATION AMONG STREET CHILDREN IN KENYA

Children in many Kenyan communities are conceived as sources of wealth, an investment and thus, socially, emotionally and economically rewarding. My interest in studying street children stemmed from the desire to understand what exactly happened in the this[Kenyan] society where children are highly valued, yet we witness armies of children taking over major towns in Kenya as scavengers to whom the street is the only source of livelihood. In this publication, I have utilized an anthropological perspective of understanding street children from their own point of view. Issues of social and economic organization of the street children while on the streets have been documented, among others, the opportunities and challenge they face as they wring a livelihood on the streets. Being largely a qualitative approach, I have drawn several inferences that have been logically explained to express the push and pull factors that influence patterns of migration among street children in the study area. The book culminates with a conceptual framework derived from the study and thus, recommendations that are drawn for policy purposes.