Beginning street life: Factors contributing to children working and living on the streets of Khartoum, Sudan

Abstract Understanding why some children work on the streets while others live there, and how causal factors differ by gender, is important in developing effective services for them. This study examined these questions in Sudan using participant observation, qualitative interviews, and surveys of working boys ( n  = 1025), working girls ( n  = 192), street boys ( n  = 397), and street girls ( n  = 35). Street children were less likely than working children to have local families (66% and 77%, p p p p p p p  = 0.019), and/or insufficient food at home (63% and 40%, p  = 0.008), but street girls also more often reported boredom at home (80% and 48%, p