Freedom and Persecution: The Experience of the Street Child

Abstract

This study is an attempt to see the "lives of the street children of Bogota through their own eyes. Consequently, the major source of the information for this paper was the street children themselves. When I first envisioned carrying out this study, I naively thought it would be an easy matter to approach the kids directly on the street, befriend them, and conduct informal interviews and participant-observation as the situation would allow. Due to the unique nature of the subculture of these children, one which demands loyalty to the group and a total rejection of the conventional adult society and norms, this process was complicated greatly and I had to spend a considerable amount of time (over one month of my three month period) making contacts that would afford me a means of entrance into this exclusive subculture.