National census of street families places population over 46,000

Half of all street girls and women in Kenya have HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, the first-ever national census of street families reads.

The report also reveals that 55 per cent of females have STIs while 74 per cent of males suffer skin diseases.

The census conducted in April 2018 also shows that Kenya has more than 46,639 street children and families.

The highest concentration of street persons was found in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru and Uasin Gishu Counties out of the 47 counties.

“At least 92.2 per cent of males were involved in peddling drugs and alcohol, 96.1 per cent of females are engaged in sex work activity at night,” reads the census report released by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

The report also reveals that tens of millions of children are living or working on the streets.

Their numbers keep growing due to population growth, urbanization and migration, particularly in the developing world such as Kenya.

Children are pushed into living and working on the street by many factors, corporal punishment ranked highest at 43 per cent, as the reason why street persons aged 15- 19years go to the streets. For children aged 10-14 years, the reasons for being in the streets was influence by friends (33.5 per cent) and influence by parents living in the streets (28.2 per cent).

Labour Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui said the specific objective of the census was to establish the magnitude and demographic characteristics of the street families in Kenya; assess the socio-economic and political push and pull factors of street families; generate a databank for street families; and map out existing services, opportunities and potential challenges for street families.

Some of the adversities street families face is limited access to basic healthcare, physical violence and poor living conditions due to lack of proper shelter.

“In light of all these challenges, we look forward to the government and stakeholders utilising the findings in the census to come up with strategies for helping the street families,” KNBS Manager Robert Buluma said.

Over the years, the Government has been promoting socio-economic interventions targeting the vulnerable and marginalized groups, with the aim of empowering them for sustainable livelihoods.

This notwithstanding, the street families have not benefited from this support due to unavailability of accurate and credible data for planning, budgeting and decision making.

14 per cent of the street persons have however been rehabilitated or reintegrated, out of these, 16 per cent were males and 8 per cent were females.

Over 40 per cent of the respondents have received rehabilitation and reintegration services from the government, and 22.7 per cent from Non-Governmental Organizations and faith-based organizations respectively.