The Requirements of a Protective Criminalization for Street Children
Rahim Nobahar
Fatemeh Saffari
Street children are among the vulnerable social groups and exposed in danger of different types of abuses. They need a variety of protections including legal support. Criminalization of some behaviors in the framework of the standards and principles of criminalization is one aspect of this legal protection. For this protection to happen, it is necessary first to realize the more harmful behaviors against street children. The criminalization, however, is not sufficient in itself, and quality of criminalization is more important than the criminalization. This article supports criminalization of some more important examples of misbehaviors with street children like bad guardianship, economic exploitation, sexual abuse, human trafficking and threatening them to avoid complaint against these mistreatments. The article also discusses some qualifications of criminalization in this field like recognition of public aspect of crimes against street children and outlining a system of proof in which all benefits and interests of the street children are secured.
Keywords: Street children, criminalization, victimhood, criminal protection, burden of proof.