Ijeoma O. Ehiemere
University of Nigeria, Nigeria
Title: Health and social challenges of street children in Enugu urban, southeast, Nigeria
Biography
Biography: Ijeoma O. Ehiemere
Abstract
Background Street children phenomenon is global, alarming, escalating and becoming public health concern especially in developing countries including Nigeria. In Enugu urban, it is common to see children left to loiter, hawking or doing some menial tasks with or without consent of parents or guardians with the attendant challenges. This poses a serious future problem if these children are not studied, harnessed by planning appropriate intervention programme. Purpose The aim of the study was to assess health and social challenges of street children in Enugu Urban, Enugu State, South east, Nigeria Methods and Materials: A cross sectional survey design was used for the study. Due to the transitory nature of street children, convenience sampling technique was used to select 384 study subjects. A validated structured interviewer administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was analyzed with the aid of SPSS version 20. P-values< 0.05 were considered significant association. Results: Out of 384 subjects studied, 220 (58.4%)were males with a mean age of 12 years. Majority of the subjects 350 (87.8%) were Christians. About half of the study participants live with both parents while only (12.2%) live with friends or guardians. The main reason for being in the street was to augment family income (62.8%). Major health challenges experienced by the participants included cough (75.9%), headaches (75.6%) body pains (71.9%) and body weakness (65.8%). The major social challenges were hunger (69.5%), verbal abuse (62.3%), harsh weather (63.2%) and dropping out of school (46.9%). Tiredness, wound and bruises were significantly associated with gender(males). The study concluded that economic hardship of parents/guardians was the major cause of street children phenomenon in Enugu urban Enugu State. It is therefore recommended that empowering parents with soft loan to enable them engage in agriculture or trading will help in ameliorating the financial hardship experienced by parents. Also providing basic skill acquisition centers for mothers to improve their economic power will contribute to the reduction of the increasing street children in Enugu urban.