“EFFECTS OF STREETISM ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF STREET CHILDREN IN PESHAWAR”

Abstract

Socio economic factors such as political turmoil, polity, price hike, inflation, and currency depreciation alongside societal decadence: rejection by one’s own family, have resulted in an exponential rise in street children’s populace, the world over. This thesis evaluates the effects of streetism on the mental/psychological health of street children in Peshawar, the capital city of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. This study is qualitative in nature, and overt field observations and semi structured interviews are used as instruments of data collection from eighty three respondents between five till seventeen years (mean age was thirteen years), in various areas and organizations for street children of the city; the data collection process spanned over three months’ time period. NVivo Pro 12 and thematic manual analysis were employed to analyze the interviews conducted. The hypotheses are validated by the research study conducted and a significant relationship is discovered between streetism and its adverse effects on the mental health of street children’s sample in the study. The results include over two hundred themes that emerge from qualitative analysis of transcribed interviews; however, the following are the major and the most recurring ones that emerged from the study: Depression, Sexual Abuse, Drug and Substance use and abuse are extremely common and 71 % of sample are the sufferers, Conduct Disorder, Socio-Economic challenges, Poverty versus Richness- sense of socio-economic polarity is discovered in 53% of the street children in the sample, 57 % children noted Peer Pressure leading them to bad habits, Harassment by police is another common theme and as many as 60% respondents have reported so, Stealing and, Anger and Rage which all constitute Conduct Disorders were result as well- 54% children would steal and as many as 62 % would get angry, ill mannered and irritable immediately. The sample of street children shows, that suicide attempts are not a common trend among the former, although suicide ideation is known to exist (46%).