Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

Childhood in Africa is almost barbaric.  It resembles childhood when the concept  was first emerging in America.  A majority of the population in Africa are extremely poor and therefore in bad health.  Aids and other diseases leave many children parentless and surviving on their own.  African children begin working at a very early age just to make enough money for some bread or rice.  They help support their families by working instead of going to school and many of the girls are married off early to older men so their families know they are being taken care of.  I found an aricle that sums up the life of two African children.  Like many children their parents died when theses girls were two months old.  A woman took care of them and then abandoned them at an early age leaving them homeless on the streets. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4098634.stm