Introduction

In a country of nearly 90,000,000 people, with a land mass roughly the equivalent of the state of Arizona, an estimated 40% of the Filipino population is below the poverty level.

Such vast poverty leaves countless people uneducated, malnourished, homeless and hopeless.

An estimated 2 million children roam the streets of the Philippines on a daily basis. 75% of these children are considered children on the streets (meaning they work and play there, but still have families to return to and are sometimes educated), while 25% are considered children of the streets (meaning they live there, with no place to call home). Approximately 10% of these children of the streets have no family ties and no one to care for them.

Children that are the product of such statistics are often neglected, abused, abandoned and sometimes orphaned due to the extreme conditions in some areas. Other problems that result from such environments include drug use (such as inhalants, marijuana and shabu), widespread illnesses sometimes resulting in death, injuries, sexual exploitation and even imprisonment. Children as young as 10 years old have been imprisoned for offenses as minor as vagrancy. They are placed in cells with the general adult population and are subsequently abused and exploited. Roughly 60,000 street children are working as prostitutes.

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