Volume 24, Issue 3 (August & September 2021)                   J Arak Uni Med Sci 2021, 24(3): 318-323 | Back to browse issues page


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Khammarnia M, Peyvand M. Street Children, Thread Lost During the Pandemic Covid-19: Training an Essential Need. J Arak Uni Med Sci 2021; 24 (3) :318-323
URL: http://jams.arakmu.ac.ir/article-1-6351-en.html
1- Health Promotion Research Center, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran.
2- Health Promotion Research Center, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran. , mp.peyvand@yahoo.com
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Dear Editor
ne of the problems in developing countries is the phenomenon of working children or so-called street children, which is expanding with the expansion of urban poverty and other social problems. Street children are people under the age of 18 who live or work on the streets, have no family, or are displaced due to financial poverty [1]. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) divides these children into four groups: those who sell in the streets, those who are begging, those who engage in illegal activities, drug trafficking, and similar crimes, and a group involved in prostitution [2].
Street child is a growing phenomenon in Iran, which due to the characteristics of life, is the source of many health misconducts. These behaviors not only harm the child but also endanger the health of society. Street children are engaged in peddling, begging, or other activities almost every day from the first morning to the evening in fixed and designated places [3].
Due to their special living conditions, these children are exposed to physical and psychological harm. For this reason, this is necessary to support them in the context of defending and protecting children’s rights. Due to their particular lifestyle and low educational literacy, these children have many health problems, including collecting household and infectious waste, contact with contaminated needles, parental addiction, drug abuse, living in unsanitary and suburban environments, sexual and physical abuse, nutritional problems, mental health problems, immune system diseases, and other high-risk behaviors that predispose people to a variety of diseases such as malnutrition, anemia, gastrointestinal disorders, and infectious diseases such as hepatitis HIV and tuberculosis [4].
On the other hand, due to the prevalence of the Covid-19 pandemic in the world and Iran and the high transmission power of this virus in the community, the vulnerability of this group has increased. The presence of children in crowded places, street level, and high-risk activities such as garbage collection has made these children more prone to coronary heart disease than others [5].
These children can quickly spread the virus in the family and community due to various reasons such as negligence, inadequate education, financial inability, lack of access to the necessary medical facilities, and as a result, do not follow the required steps for treatment [6]. While spending the day in public and on the streets, this group not only does not wear masks and gloves, they do not even know the correct ways to prevent coronation, and they easily ignore the principles of individual hygiene [7].
 According to the above, street children naturally suffer from severe deprivation. They are in financial, and livelihood constraints and are doubly poor in terms of education, culture, and society, which are high-risk groups and prone to developing. They are sensitive to Covid-19 morbidity; also, the negligence of the authorities in paying proper attention to this group makes the efforts of the health care staff and the people to break the chain of the disease remain fruitless.
Providing legal conditions for using the country’s strategic reserves for financial, educational, health, and other essential needs of the low-income groups, especially working children.
Identify working children and create a comprehensive database of their living conditions, prepare and provide targeted support packages, ongoing cooperation between government agencies and charities and other non-governmental organizations to maximize coverage of these children and their families, conduct continuous diagnostic tests of them, ensuring non-morbidity to Covid-19 and providing online education services for those working children who are studying, should be considered by government officials and non-governmental organizations.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines

There were no ethical considerations to be considered in this research.

Funding
This research did not receive any grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors. 

Authors' contributions
Both authors equally contributed to preparing this article.

Conflicts of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.


 References
  1. Ansari H,  Ansari Moghaddam A, Mohammadi M, Peyvand M, Gorgij A, Shahraki Sanavi F. Health status and life situation of street children in Zahedan, southeast of Iran. Health Scope. 2015; 4(4):e31077. [DOI:10.17795/jhealthscope-31077]
  2. Maghsoudi A, Baneshi MR, Neydavoodi M, Haghdoost A. Network scale-up correction factors for population size estimation of people who inject drugs and female sex workers in Iran. PLoS One. 2014; 9(11):e110917. [DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0110917]
  3. Vameghi M, Roshanfekr P, Ali D, Noroozi M, Madani S, McFarland W, et al. Population size estimates of street children in Iran: Synthesis of multiple methods. Kerman Uni Med Sci. 2019; 96(4):549-57. [DOI:10.1007/s11524-019-00354-4]
  4. Uddin MJ, Sarma H, Wahed T, Ali MW, Koehlmoos TP, Nahar Q, et al. Vulnerability of Bangladeshi street-children to HIV/AIDS: A qualitative study. BMC Public Health. 2014; 14:1151. [DOI:10.1186/1471-2458-14-1151]
  5. Kawala BA, Kirui BK, Cumber SN. Effect of COVID-19 response in Uganda on street children. Pan Afr Med J. 2020; 35(2):56. [DOI:10.11604/pamj.2020.35.2.23545]
  6. Hunter J, Chitsiku S, Shand W, Van Blerk L. Learning on Harare’s streets under COVID-19 lockdown: Making a story map with street youth. Environ Urban. 2021; 33(1):31-42. [DOI: 10.1177/0956247820979440]
  7. Holiday S. How they got to Sesame street: Children’s Television Workshop’s appropriation of advertising tactics for effective childhood literacy education. J Early Child Lit. 2021. [DOI: 10.1177/14687984211003245]
 
Type of Study: Editorial | Subject: Health
Received: 2020/07/8 | Accepted: 2021/02/9

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