Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 23, No.

2, 2013

Brief Research Communication

Street Children and Rehabilitation Services in Pakistan

Sadiq Hussain* Ph.D

Behavioral Sciences Department, Karakoram International University
Gilgit, Pakistan
Ghazala Khan
Azad Foundation Karachi, Pakistan

The present study was conducted to examine efficacy of

rehabilitation services for emotional and intellectual functioning of
street children in Pakistan. It was hypothesized that emotional and
intellectual functioning and achievement of street children would
improve after availing rehabilitation services. Pre and post design
was used and 17 street children were recruited through an
organization. Human Figure Drawing (Koppitz, 1968) and Draw-a
Person Intellectual Ability test (Reynolds & Hickman, 2004) were
individually administered to assess emotional and intellectual
functioning and achievement of street children. Paired-Samples t-
test analyses revealed significant improvement in emotional
functioning, intellectual ability and achievement of street children
subsequent to the provision of rehabilitation services. It is
concluded that rehabilitation services are useful for emotional well
being and intellectual functioning of street children.
Keywords: Street children, rehabilitation, emotional
functioning, intellectual ability

United Nation‟s International Children Education Fund (UNICEF,

2009) defined three types of street children: Street living children who
run away from their families and live on streets; street working children
they spend most of their time on streets, fending off themselves and
returning home on regular basis; and children from street families these
are children who live on streets with their families.
Rizni (1996) has proposed the Latin American Model of street
children which has two aspects. The first aspect consists of the negative

*Correspondence concerning this brief research communication should be addressed to

Sadiq Hussain Ph.D, Behavioral Sciences Department, Karakoram International
University Gilgit, Main University Road Gilgit-Baltistan –Pakistan.
E-mail: [email protected]
 HUSSAIN AND KHAN
118

public images of street children such as; they are seen as unscrupulous,
antisocial, difficult to rehabilitate, and involve into criminal and terrorist
activities. The second facet of this model sees street children as with
heroic qualities. Although, they are poor, exploited, and oppressed but
stronger and smart surviving heroes, have to face oppositions from the
public and denounce the unjust society. The African model of street
children differ from Latin American model, because of the fact that
various terms and definitions are being use to describe street children
(Ennew, 2003). In this model Dallape (1996) has identified four
categories of street children; abandoned or orphaned; these children have
no contact with their family and live in streets; Secondly, independent,
maintaining family contact; these children are living in streets but have
contact with their family; Thirdly, working, living with families; these
children are working and living in streets with their family, fourth living
with economically deprived families. This model is more or less similar
to the globalized model of street children adopted by UNICEF (2009).
The negative aspect of street children turns from the globalized model of
street children due to the involvement of media and advocacy
organizations. For Dallape (1996) the word „street children‟ is
inappropriate, offensive, and even gives distorted message.
The scenario of street children in Pakistan is not much different
from other parts of the world. Pakistan is home to the biggest community
of street children. More than 170000 children live on the streets across
the country. They are victims of domestic violence and broken homes
and have illiterate and uneducated family backgrounds. They are ignored
and stigmatized; they have no support, healthcare, and face violence and
hunger daily. Pakistani street children are subjected to sexual and
physical abuse. Around 90% of them are sexually abused on the first
night of their street live. Unfortunately, 60% sexual abuse of street
children is associated with police (Pakistan Today, 2012). Street children
do not have trust on police; this mistrust lead them to juvenile behavior
that eventually hinders their development as human (Rana & Chaudhry,
2011). Considering a large number of children on street, it is important
that they should be rehabilitated.
Rehabilitation refers to any procedure that attempts to return the
person to previous level of health in terms of physical and emotional well
being. Various rehabilitation techniques are working as compensatory
sources to restore at least some functioning of damaged part through
education. The basic essence of rehabilitation is to help the person to gain
STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN 119

the maximum quality of life and health within his circumstances (Tatum,
2003-2009).
Round the globe, efforts have been made to improve the life of
street children through rehabilitation services. Different programs have
been launched to help them by considering the circumstances in which
they are living. For example Jocob, Smith, Hite, & Cheng (2004)
introduced the resettlement and educational programs for orphan and
street children as a battle campaign against the problems of children who
live on the street. The modal was adapted by Uganda government in
order to educate and resocialize children who are living on the streets.
Little Sisters of St. Francis (1998) concluded the impact of different
rehabilitation services on street children such as formal education,
vocational skills training, income generation project, poultry project,
piggery project and food security project for children. Over 1500 children
availed these services and left the organization with vocational survival
skills and are now living with a happy life. Environmental behavioral
modification was implemented in Alexandria in order to help street
children to change their behavior, find their potentials, and obtain new
skills. The program included recreational activities, life skill activities,
verbal and performance activities such as storytelling and role playing.
Data was obtained before and after the intervention on a sample of 35
street children aged between 7-15 years. The mean score of all related
areas of behavior was significantly improved after intervention except in
speech disorder and substance use (Hosny, Moloukhia, Abd Elsalam,
Abd Elatif, 2007).
In the Pakistani context, rehabilitation services for street children
are not satisfactory. Public welfare institutions working with the street
children are highly discriminating. All these institutions claim their
achievement but ground realities reflect just the opposite. Street children
believe that they are being used by various institutions including NGOs
to earn money. Negative attitude further compel them to be ill mannered,
juvenile, and unreliable. In short of common man development indicators
are disappointing among this neglected segment of the Pakistani society
(Rana & Chaudhry, 2011).
Children in general and street children in particular heavily
depend on adults‟ assumptions about how they feel and what they need
(Ennew, 2003). Researchers usually ask questions from parents, teachers,
and/or other informants about children functioning. Chennupati,
Seetharaman, and Gunturu (2002) reported that it is difficult to
rehabilitate the street children by institutionalization or returning them to
120 HUSSAIN AND KHAN

their respective families because of their mobility, however a step wise

program was an indicative of benefits for them. Additionally, the
implementation of peer group education and counseling brought about a
positive change in their behavior. Despite all these challenges various
organizations are committed to serve the street children to make them self
dependent and responsible citizen of their society. The life in street is
associated with child-specific physical and emotional problems that
demand for early and specialized programs. Suitable social and economic
policies are essential to prevent the growing number of street children in
future and those who are already in the street need to be given an
immediate opportunity for their development (Volpi, 2002).
The objective of the present study was to examine efficacy of
rehabilitation services for street children in Pakistan, so that nature of
services would be modified to help street children to be a healthy,
responsible and self dependent citizen. Additionally, the findings will
help government institutions and other non government organizations to
plan out rehabilitation services for this marginalized population so that
they can return to their normal life and ultimately become civilized
citizens of the country.

Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were formulated:
1. Emotional functioning of street children would improve after
provision of rehabilitation services.
2. Intellectual functioning of street children would improve after
provision of rehabilitation services.
3. Achievement of street children would improve after provision of
rehabilitation services.

Method
Sample
A total of 17 street children were recruited through a non
government organization based in Karachi working with for street
children. Their age ranged between 7-14 years with the mean age of
11.47 (SD = 1.63). All of them were from lower socioeconomic class.
Only those children were included who were new inductees and potential
beneficiaries of rehabilitation services provided by the organization and
were expected to stay at the facility for at least three months.
STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN 121

Measures
Human Figure Drawing. Human Figure Drawing (Koppitz,
1968) was used to assess children‟s emotional functioning Its manual
instructions are “On this piece of paper I would like you to draw a whole
person. It can be any kind of a person you want to draw just make sure
that it is a whole person and not a stick figure or cartoon figure”. The
scoring of Human Figure Drawing by Koppitz (1968) was performed by
four independent clinical psychologists by using 30 valid emotional
indicators according to the directions given in the manual.
Draw-a-Person Intellectual Ability Test. Draw-a-Person
Intellectual Ability Test for Children, Adolescent and Adults (Reynolds
& Hickman, 2004) was used to assess street children‟s intelligence
ability. The test reportedly has good psychometric properties. Reynolds
and Hickman (2004) reported coefficient alpha in the range of .75 to 87
for ages from 4 to 89 years with median and mean value of .82.
Regarding validity of the test, convergent validity was reported with
other intelligence test including Human Figure Drawing IQs (Kopitz,
1968), Goodenogh-Harris (1963), and WISC-III (Wechsler, 1991). The
correlation coefficient ranged from .33 to .86. Its convergent validity with
other achievement tests namely Jonson-Revised Test of Achievement
(Woodcock & Johnson, 1989) and Wechsler Individual Achievement
Test (Wechsler, 1992) is significant. Its manual instructions are “I want
you to draw a picture of yourself. Be sure to draw your whole body, not
just your head, and draw how you look from the front, not from the side.
Do not draw a cartoon or stick figure. Draw the very best picture of
yourself that you can. Take your time and work carefully. Go ahead”.
Their grad levels as measured by Draw-a-Person Intellectual Ability Test
were converted into numeric form for statistical analysis.
The scoring of Draw-a-Person Intellectual Ability Test for
Children, Adolescent and Adults by Reynolds and Hickman (2004) was
also performed by four independent clinical psychologists by using the
scoring form; the inter-rater reliability among four independent observers
for both tests was .99.

Rehabilitation Services (Intervention)

Rehabilitation services served as an intervention for the selected
sample at a private organization in Karachi, these services included;
fulfillment of basic needs, non-formal education, skill development
programs (tailoring, embroidery, & cooking so children opt for the skill
to be trained in family counseling sessions, recreational activities
122 HUSSAIN AND KHAN

(cricket, football, volleyball, picnic etc), and reunification with family

(Azad Foundation, 2009).

Procedure
The street children; when first registered at the Drop-in-Centers of
an NGO were assessed by a trained clinical psychologist using Human
Figure Drawings (1968) and Draw-a-Person Intellectual Ability Test.
This initial assessment was used as baseline in order to determine
emotional and intellectual functioning of the children prior to benefiting
from rehabilitation services provided by the organization. There was an
interval of one week between the administration of Human Figure
Drawing and Draw-a-Person Intellectual Ability Test as a precaution to
reduce any possible practice effects that served as pretesting. After three
months stay in the rehabilitation centre, children were reassessed using
the same measures by the same clinical psychologist. Mean scores of pre
and post assessment were compared in order to evaluate the differences
between two assessments.

Ethical Considerations
The researchers approached and explained purpose of research to
the concerned authority of a NGO for seeking permission to recruit
sample. Children were approached at drop-in centers for pre assessment
at shelter home and for post testing after three months. Only those
children were included in the sample who volunteered to participate.

Results
Paired Samples t-test was applied to analyze the data.

Table 1
Showing the Mean Differences Between pre and post Level of Emotional
Indicators, Intelligence, and Achievement of Street Children (N=17)
Variable Step M SD t
Emotional Indicators Pre 3.58 1.32
Post 2.00 1.74 -3.25**
Intellectual ability Pre 85.00 17.75
Post 97.23 18.97 6.37***
Achievement Pre 36.23 28.92
Post 56.23 31.68 4.04***
** p<0.01, ***p<0.001.
STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN 123

Results presented in table 1 show that street children‟s emotional

dysfunctions significantly decreased, while their intellectual functioning
and achievement level increased after having availed rehabilitation
services. Further, high level of standard deviation is indicative of the
heterogeneity of intellectual ability and achievement that implies that the
participants‟ intellectual functioning and achievement level before and
after availing rehabilitation services is highly scattered.

Discussion
This study examined the impact of rehabilitation services on
emotional and intellectual functioning of street children in Karachi,
Pakistan. Our findings found rehabilitation services effective in terms of
improved emotional and intellectual functioning of the children and are
in consensus with earlier studies. For example Lungu (2004) reported the
results of rehabilitation services through which basic necessities
including basic education were provided to participant. After six months
the street boys who were previously used to telling lies were obedient and
attended social activities like church and sports. Packman et al. (2008)
have used human figure drawing as measure of pre and post assessment
to determine the effect of camp interventions on siblings of children with
cancer. On the Human Figure Drawing, siblings' emotional distress
scores decreased significantly pre- to post evaluation after three months.
Sancilio (1987) found that child-child interaction plays an
important role in behavioral change. His intervention included use of
peers as social reinforces and facilitators, group integration, peer-pairing
and social training. Results are indicative of desirable changes in target
child‟s behavior as result of social manipulation. Williamson (1971) in
his experiment evaluated the impact of intervention on children and they
showed smaller number of emotional indicators on Kopitz Human Figure
Drawing after treatment.
Secondly, it was hypothesized that intellectual functioning of
street children would increase after availing rehabilitation services. Our
findings supported this hypothesis. Lungu (2004) also reported that, after
availing rehabilitation services street children bathed regularly even
without being told, developed initiative, and innovation like gardening
and repair of gadgets without being taught. Lawrance and Blair (2004)
found that interventions bring about change in children‟s intelligence but
other factors such as maternal age, race and child‟s birth weight also tend
to influence it. In this study errors were decreased in problem solving
performance on a computerized problem solving task during post
124 HUSSAIN AND KHAN

assessment as compared to the base-line functioning of acquired brain

injury student.
In the present study, achievement of street children increased
significantly after availing rehabilitation services. These findings are
consistent with those reported by Lungu (2004). According to him after
six months of rehabilitation; street children were able to read and write
simple words. Students‟ cognitive growth was substantially affected by
intervention and their achievement was better as compare to control
group (Iqbal, 1997).
According to Rana and Chaudhry (2011), education is the basic
social need and an indicator of human development that is essential for
cognitive development. It provides awareness about how to address the
complex issues. Unfortunately, the marginalized segments including
street children in Pakistan haven‟t access to educational facilities. Only
27% of street children had joined schools for year or two then left it due
to different reasons and 73% street children never went to school. The
most important reasons for street children leaving school are; the fear of
corporal punishment, parents could not afford their educational expenses,
and some children reported that they don‟t like to study.
Some conflicting findings regarding the effectiveness of
rehabilitation services for street children have also been reported by the
researchers. For example the Chinese “protective” policy model which
aims to send street children back to their birth family by forceful
measures, has failed to effectively help street children (Cheng, 2009).
Similar findings have been found by De Moura (2005) in Brazil and
Lefeh (2008) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The reason behind the
failure of such services is the conflict between welfare policies and
ground realities. Therefore, researchers like Smeaton (2009) from UK,
and Van Blerk (2006) from Uganda, and other researchers recommended
that policy makers should pay their attention to the voices of street
children, their personalities, life experiences, gender, age, and ethnicity to
developed target policies for betterment of street children.
Unfortunately, in Pakistan public welfare institutions have failed
to perform their responsibility in general and particularly in case of street
children (Rana & Chaudhry, 2011). This is the right time to adapt the
globalized model of street children that focuses on the positive aspect of
street children as well for their better socialization practically instead of
documentary claims. Despite being poor, marginalized, neglected, and
threatened. They need affection, attention, and dedication. They have
hidden strength in the culture of street life. The marginalization of street
STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN 125

children will end when their emotional and physical needs are met
appropriately (Fujimura, 2003).

Limitations and Conclusion

The major limitation of this study is lack of control, like prior
history and maturation effects. Therefore, it is recommended to include
control group in future studies in order to increase its external validity.
On the basis of our findings and other relevant evidence, it can be
concluded that the environmental manipulation is more effective mean
for positive growth of this neglected population (street children),
including their emotional adjustment and functioning, intellectual
development, and achievement. Therefore, all concerned entities
including government institutes and private organizations are
recommended to take favorable steps in order to ensure street children‟s
emotion and intellectual functioning, which in turn would facilitate their
reunification with their families and be instrumental in making them a
responsible citizen.

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Received July 27, 2012

Revisions received October 08, 2013