Street youth are our kids, too

Abstract

Most of us have a pretty stereotypical view of street youth. The phrase conjures up images of squeegees, panhandlers, rings and studs in strange places, shooting galleries, and big city blight. Not your typical tourist attraction, they sit, blank faced, dishevelled, anonymous. Sometimes they are just another statistic in the sad tale of life and death on our streets. One asks, where is the glamour in that? We, the Adolescent Health Section of the Canadian Paediatric Society, have come to realize that the phrase ‘street youth’ covers a complex mix of young people. There are the homeless, the curbsiders, the wannabes, the sex trade workers, the addicts and the weekenders. Each comes from a different set of circumstances, but all are marginalized, alienated, exploited and vulnerable. However, they are also inventive, resilient, caring and spiritual, and have dreams of a future similar to most young people in Canada. They have two families – the one that they left behind and the one that they found. The connections may be tenuous but they are attached to both. When we, physicians and the general public, think of street youth, we usually associate them with big cities. They are not commonly thought of in the context of the smaller cities and towns across our country. During the analysis of data for a recently released report on young sex trade workers in four smaller British Columbia cities, fellow researchers and I stumbled upon findings that challenge some of our notions about street youth (1). I say ‘stumbled’ because we were expecting to find that big and small city street youth did not differ that much. In the smaller cities what we discovered was a much younger group of youth with greater involvement in the sex trade. Of the 77 youth studied, most were under 18 years of age, lived at home and attended school. Most of the youth came directly from the local community, and 80% had been in government care at some point in time. Our study focused on sex trade workers, so it was no surprise that 36% of the youth considered themselves to be prostitutes. It was a surprise that the average age of entry into sex trade work was 13 years. The experiences of the youth included pregnancy (50%), physical and sexual abuse (90%), and smoking (100%). The majority reported exposure to drugs and alcohol, multiple sexual partners and frequent suicide attempts. Earlier studies of street youth in Vancouver and Victoria showed important differences between big city and small city street youth (2,3). The average age of big city street youth was older compared with small city youth (19 years versus 16 years, respectively), there were more males (49% versus 7%) in the big city group and more big city youth were from ‘away’ places (93% versus 51%). The big city street youth are less likely to be living at home, to be in school or to be in government care. Both big and small city street youth differ from in-school or ‘mainstream’ youth in the greater extent to which they experience difficulties with school, poor health, bulimia, and physical and sexual abuse; attempt suicide; are involved in physical fights; carry weapons; smoke; and abuse drugs. In addition, they report experiencing these behaviours at a much younger age than in-school youth. In reviewing our findings, we concluded that we had found the early beginnings of a street youth cycle. We believe that as their involvement in street life progresses, young people leave their home communities to go to big cities, sever connections with family and peers, and escalate their involvement in drug abuse, commercial and survival sex, and other risky behaviours. We need to know more about that process. Our research in smaller cities highlights the need for more studies of the early phases of the street youth phenomenon. How did they get started? What early intervention strategies are needed? What are the risk and protective factors in these early adolescents? Why do they continue in such a destructive cycle? What happens to their dreams? When we see squeegee kids in Toronto or Vancouver, we need to try to understand their realities better. We need to realize that they did not get there by accident or considered choice. The youth have told us that they need safe spaces, affordable shelter, educational and vocational opportunities, access to youth friendly health clinics, and alcohol and drug treatment. This means that more services are needed in small communities before the street youth reach the big city.