Most studies to date have established that street children are mainly boys, coming onto the street typically at around 10-14 years of age, although there have always been many much younger. Field workers are now beginning to report many more street living girls, and that the age ranges for new street children is drifting downwards. Some children of course begin life on the streets as the children of street children. To obtain food, or money for food, a child must beg, steal or quickly find some means of earning money by scavenging, or finding menial work helping street traders, shoeshining, windscreen washing, portering, or working as a tea boy. There are adults and older youths who will exploit and corrupt the street children, enticing them to distribute their drugs, steal for them or even prostitute themselves.
Shelter is a doorway, a park bench, a street trader's stall or railway platform.
They are always being moved on by the authorities so that they are nomadic, with no access to health care or education. In their search for company they may be lucky enough to find a kindly outreach worker from a charity, or join a gang of other street children, but too often the overtly friendly offer of help turns out to come from a modern Fagin, or drug dealer, or pimp or paedophile. There are many international NGOs which try to reach and help street children, offering a range of services on the street and in residential care from regular food, health care, education, vocational training to counselling and the offer of real affection and love. But these resources are thin on the ground compared to the need, and many of the alternatives offered by states, involving referral to large institutions, are rejected by the children. Some of the NGO interventions are preventative, but most try to rescue children who have spent months or years on the street.