Ben Faccini – Street children: To view street children as different, and separate, is perhaps an obvious way to live with the insupportable reality of their plight. Of course, it goes without saying that street children are no different from our children, from ourselves (how we once were), but to accept this truly, and to live with it, is hard. It undermines one of the most fundamental and commonly shared foundations of all human societies: that we care for, and protect, our children. Instead, the most vulnerable and youngest are often forced into the role of outcasts. The child becomes untouchable, a pariah — alone, assailable and exposed to the abjectness of the world.
On my return from Mongolia, I remember repeatedly feeling bewildered by my own young children. As I got them ready for bed, I found myself struggling to chase away insistent images of the Mongolian children in the heating vents. Yet I had to banish those very fresh memories in order just to be with my children. I became quickly frustrated by their complaints about life: ‘I don’t like my peas and mash touching’; ‘I’m not watching Robin Hood again’. These were the capricious banalities of children used to comfort, and I wanted to yell at them that they didn’t realise how lucky they were.