Commercial Glue Sniffing and Child Health: Indian Street Children are at a Risk

Image

Children are the source of hope and inspiration for the society. That is why they have the right to be brought up in a positive environment. But there are many children in the world who have become synonymous with social deprivation at its worst. Children who are working and living on the streets are found throughout the nation. Street children constitute a marginalized population in most urban centers of the world. There are major difficulties in trying to estimate the number of street children and the magnitude of hardship they experience. In their marginalized state they constitute a truly “hidden” population who were not covered by nor find place in the national census, educational or health data, largely because they have no fixed address [1]. This problem is further compounded by the fact that they are also a highly mobile population. However, it is speculated that between 100,000 and 125,000 children live on the streets and railway stations of India’s major cities, and that more than half of them have some form of drug addiction.