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2. Category of Vietnamese Street Children
The writer categorizes Vietnamese street children characters based on the categorization of Terre des hommes Foundation 2004 and UNICEF n.d.. Terre
des hommes Foundation categorizes street children into four groups. Its categorization is similar to those of UNICEF which is based on background and
living situation. Children in Category A are children who live alone on the street. They do
not have home to return to. UNICEF calls this category as Street Living Children. These children have lost ties with their families. They thus sleep and live alone on
the street. They earn money only for themselves alone. They do not think about the
needs of the family members. Only their own needs demand them to earn money. Most of the street children characters in this novel belong to this category.
One of them is Minh. He has been abandoned by his mother since he was a toddler. He does not have any relatives. He only has Mai as his best friend and he
regards her as his sister. Minh and Mai do not only earn money on the street but also sleep on the street during the night. They do not have home to return to.
Another street child described in the novel is Phuong. He is an orphan who runs away from an orphanage. He prefers living on the street to staying in the
orphanage. He does not have family or relatives. He has to survive alone on the street. That is why he earns money just for his living.
Children in Category B are children who sleep on the street with their family or guardian. UNICEF calls this category as The Children of Street Living
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39 Families. These children are not alone because they live and sleep on the street
with their families. They work on the street in order to help their family. Terre des hommes Foundation 2004 portrays most of them are migrant family who are not
legal residents p.156. The street children portrayed in the novel do not include to this category.
They are not from migrant families. They have been living in Ho Chi Minh City since they were born. Therefore, they are legal residents of Ho Chi Minh City.
Children in Category C are children who live at home, but work on the street. UNICEF calls this category as Street Working Children. These children
spend most of their time to work on the street. They earn extra income for their families. They have a home to return to and do not usually sleep on the street.
Tam belongs to this category. She lives with her grandmother, Qui. They earn money on the street during the day and go back to their house at night. Tung
also lives with his family. He has a father, a brother, and a baby sister. He does not live on the street since he has home and family to return to. He only works on
the street to earn extra income for his family. He helps his father in earning money to buy baby milk for his baby sister. He does not attend school. He does not work
after the school time but he works during the full day. Children in Category D are migrant children who earn money in casual
street activities to supply family income. They migrate from rural areas to urban areas to find jobs because urban areas provide much occupations and social
services. Bartlett and Minujin 2009 state, “There is also the argument that urban children benefit from a range of services and facilities that are not available to
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40 children in rural poverty” p.5. Since they work in the city to supply family
income, they will give their earning routinely to their family in the village. No character of street children belongs to this category. Those street
children do not migrate from village to Ho Chi Minh City. All of the street children characters are described from Ho Chi Minh City.
B. The Relation between Child Poverty and the Existence of Vietnamese Street Children
Kategori