ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes the practical problem of the ongoing research into children of the street in Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay. It explores the concept that has been taken up by grassroot level social workers, project activists and policy makers. Social workers and project activists, who, at least in Latin America, include also the numerous middle-class and upper-class ladies charity commissions, have increasingly taken over societal concern for street children. Policy makers, who are faced with growing numbers of children of the street, without being able to propose successful policies of control, direct their attention also to the subcategory of children working in the street. They fit better with the social norms and expectations that everyone should be productive, and there is a growing tendency to legitimate child labour on the streets as an adjustment to the obvious impossibility of its eradication in a context of growing poverty and unemployment for adults.
