In the context of poverty, socio-economic profiles and expectations of children that work on streets: The sample of Şırnak, Turkey

Since the beginning of human history, one of the problems that almost all nations encounter at different levels and that they strive to deal with is poverty. At first glance, poverty seems to cover individuals work under an average wage and lack of staple food and needs; however, it's been a phenomenon that includes social, public and political elements. Undoubtedly, poverty might affect all individuals in any society, however, children are the most disadvantageous ones that are directly and mostly affected. The poverty of children was ignored by the 20th century, but since then, it's been studied as a discipline. Along with some other reasons, societies commonly benefit from children workforce to deal with poverty. Children seem to be a group of work force for some societies and they work in different jobs. One of these is working on the street to earn a living. Many children on the street are forced to work due to problems related to poverty and they are usually neglected and abused. Normally, while a child should be avoided from any environment, relation and conditions that might adversely affect their development, most children on the street are forced to work at an early age and they risk to gain ground in social and personal life and to get opportunities. In literature, there have been many studies on poverty and street jobs so far. The main difference of our study is that it's carried out in an undeveloped and small city in Turkey. The reason for this choice is the fact that almost all groups in these studies are emigrants of similar cities or their relatives. The aim of the study is to find out the reasons that force these children to work, to discover relations between children and poverty, ignorance, abuse, to determine social and economic profiles and to suppose future expectations of these children. The method of the study is questionnaire and interviews. The questionnaires and the data collected from 550 individuals that live in Şırnak and its vicinity were analyzed and commented by comparison. From the findings of the study and questionnaires, most children are forced to work on streets due to poverty, however, other factors like ignorance and abuse are also responsible. It was observed that children that work on streets take many risks and are prone to committing crimes as a result of ignorance and abuse. It was also discovered that both these risks and challenging conditions of living on streets have adverse effects on future expectations of these children.