Girls: The Less Visible Street Children of Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article arises from descriptive research on a number of street girls in Harare, based on meeting the girls where they operated and interviewing them informally several times over a two-month period. It looks at the background of poverty and family disintegration that resulted in the children being on the streets. It comments on public perceptions of street girls. The girls develop coping mechanisms: those living on the streets generally rely at least occasionally on the trade of sex. The article briefly discusses the difficulty of finding appropriate intervention, pointing to the intolerable damage to the lives of the girls on the one hand and their resistance to compulsory removal from the streets on the other. Finally, it points to the need of attitudinal changes in society.