| Summary: | The aim of this thesis was to study the concept of gender in understanding, and
working with street children. Gender is arguably one of the important issues in
understanding street children. Studying gender in intervention is linked to effective
practices of assisting street children because gender focus on differences among
different groups of girls and boys in the street. Gender in this research has been
conceptualised as a status that is being continually produced and reproduced during
social interaction. The thesis is divided in two main parts. The first part reviews the
available literature on gender and street children. The second part is empirical case
study of outreach activities of DSCT, a non governmental organisations working with
street children in Dar es Salaam Tanzania. The empirical part is qualitative study.
Data were collected through participant observation, semi structured interview, and
review of documents.
Review of literature showed that majority of street children are boys. There are small
but significant number of girls living and working in the streets. Girls and boys in the
streets have different opportunities to make a living, constraints, and coping
strategies. The interventions often have not considered gender differentiated needs
and circumstances of street children. Often interventions of street children reproduce
gender through their approaches which have gendered assumption or through
provision of skills based on gender stereotype. The findings from DSCT first revealed
the gendered use of space. Secondly, it showed how intervention reproduces gender
through concentrating their activities to areas where only older street boys are found.
Thus girls and young boys who spend their times in the back streets of city centre
remained invisible and with limited opportunities.
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