Why Do Some Boys Run Away from Home?

Objective: Insufficient research has been done to look for the factors compelling children to make street, their home. The study was conducted at a Child Observation Home to which street children from all over Delhi, are brought.

Methods: Each boy admitted during the specified 6 months period was interviewed. Chi2 and Fisher's test were applied. A total of 400 boys were studied, 9.8% of these had not run away from their homes and 89.2% were "Runaways". These two groups were compared and following factors were found associated with the "Runaway" group.

Result: Majority (55%) had left home between 10-12 year of age. They were more from "Joint" families. A higher percentage had literate fathers. A higher percentage had no parent earning and a higher proportion of "Not Runaways" had only the mother earning. Presence of a step parent, guardian other than the parents and intra-familial physical abuse were found associated with "Runaway" group.

Conclusion: The most common reason for running away was; beating by parents/relatives, followed by a desire for economic independence (28.5%). Other reasons were maltreatment by step parent/s, being both parents dead argument with parent etc. The factors emerging can be useful for identifying high-risk families with children in pre adolescent age and hence for prevention and rehabilitation.