Street Children in Nairobi: Gender Differences in Mental Health

Summary

Two common hypotheses have been advanced about the origins of street children: that modernization leads to a breakdown of families and that street children come from aberrant families who abandon, abuse, or neglect their children. After being accepted in Latin America, these hypotheses were also accepted in Kenya. Despite the apparent common sense of these explanations, however, it may well be that only a small percentage of street children come from dysfunctional families. We think this is particularly true if street boys are considered separately from street girls.