Briefing Paper 7: Safe Movement in the City

Summary

Six focus groups (18 in total) were undertaken in Accra (Ghana) and Harare (Zimbabwe) in June and July of 2013 and in Bukavu (Democratic Republic of Congo) in October 2014, involving over 200 participants of the Growing up on the Streets project. In each group, street children and youth mapped their local areas to identify spaces they felt to be ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ (see map). Together they marked those places where they sleep, store possessions, bathe, find food or work in the market areas, streets and illegal settlements. Many places were marked both ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’, due to the changing nature of places at different times of day and other circumstances outside young people’s control.  Previous briefing papers have explored how street children and youth access food, shelter, work and earnings; here we explore the complexity and vulnerability of life on the streets, as street children and youth negotiate safe movement whilst meeting their daily needs.