Street kids in Sierra Leone

A fascinating new report from Sierra Leone of a census of street children (via the Guardian): . Some headline results:

• In total there are just under 50,000 kids living and working on the streets in Sierra Leone.
• About half live in Freetown and half in other towns.
• There is a roughly even gender split with slightly more boys than girls.
• These kids make up around 5% of the urban population.
• 4,388 children under 6 years old were counted.
• 2,699 children were found sleeping rough.
• 1,821 under-age girls were recorded as working in the commercial sex industry.
• 633 disabled children were counted.

I would have loved to have seen a slightly more detailed age breakdown, and more detail on the types of economic activities these kids are doing. I’m a lot more worried about 8 year olds washing cars and polishing shoes than 17 year olds selling mobile phone credit.