Street Children and the Layered Failure of Protection Systems: An Analysis of Driving Factors and the Cycle of Vulnerability Reproduction

Abstrak

Street children represent a profound social challenge, often misperceived as an isolated issue rather than a systemic failure. This literature study posits that the presence of children on the streets is a direct product of collapsed social safety nets at both family and state levels. The analysis identifies a two-phase process. First, the interaction between acute familial pressures such as multidimensional poverty and domestic violence and the state’s failure to provide adequate social protection including economic assistance, healthcare, and inclusive education creates the conditions that push children onto the streets. Second, life on the street initiates a self-perpetuating cycle of alienation. This cycle involves disconnection from formal education and healthcare, immersion in exploitative informal economies, traumatic encounters with law enforcement, and internalized social stigma. These interconnected consequences form a closed system that actively reproduces vulnerability, making exit increasingly difficult. The study concludes that street children are not merely recipients of failed systems but are further victimized by the street's substitute ecosystem, which entrenches their marginalization. Therefore, effective intervention requires a fundamental shift towards preventive, family-strengthening social policies and holistic, long-term rehabilitation programs designed to dismantle the cycle of alienation.