A/HRC/19/35 homogeneous population, making the term difficult to use for research, policymaking and intervention design. 10. Terminology has continued to evolve to recognize children as social actors whose lives are not circumscribed by the street. Human Rights Council resolution 16/12 refers to children working and/or living on the street, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child has adopted the term “children in street situations,” recognizing that children engage in numerous activities on the street and that if there is a “problem” it is not the child, but rather the situations in which s/he finds her/himself. 11. As recognized during the expert consultation, new terminology is emerging which emphasizes relationships and “street connections,” drawing attention to choices children make in developing relationships on the street, alongside other connections they have with their families, neighbourhoods and schools. Most children have some connections with the street (for play, socialization, leisure and consumption) but are not reliant on public spaces for their development; they have stronger connections with family, school and peers in the community. Taking a holistic approach that understands children as growing and developing within a series of inter-connected environments, the term “street connections” recognizes that the street may be a crucial point of reference for some children, even when they are not physically present there. Street connections can become vital to children‟s everyday survival, their selection of coping strategies, and their identity development. A street-connected child is understood as a child for whom the street is a central reference point – one which plays a significant role in his/her everyday life and identity. 12. This report acknowledges there are a number of terms and definitions in use, including “children working and/or living on the street,” “children in street situations” and “children with street connections,” each having the potential to offer distinctive insights and to encourage new avenues of research. At the same time, contested definitions and evolving terminology have made it difficult to estimate the number of children in street situations. The frequently cited global estimate of more than 100 million street children has been questioned. Research undertaken for this report concludes that global estimates of the number of children in street situations have no basis in fact, and we are no closer today to knowing how many children worldwide are working and/or living in the streets. There is general agreement that estimates in the 1980s were exaggerated, but a rapidly urbanizing and growing global population, together with increasing inequalities and migration, suggest that numbers are generally increasing, including in richer regions. The number and flow of children onto the streets of a given city or country may fluctuate significantly according to changes in socio-economic and cultural-political contexts, availability of protection services and patterns of urbanization. 13. A number of country-wide analyses in countries as diverse as Romania, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Georgia and Turkey, as well as contributions to this study from States, demonstrate the complexity of making reliable estimates of children in the streets. What is known is that children with street connections form a relatively small proportion of the global population of children, and international concern should be less about numbers and more about the persistence of appalling conditions that force children to choose to move onto urban streets. B. Characteristics and experiences 14. Street children have typically been represented as male, aged around 13 or 14, engaged in substance abuse, early sexual activity, delinquency, and either orphaned or abandoned. These stereotypes reflect public attitudes towards street children more than the reality of individual children‟s lives. Such representations are problematic because they fail to capture diverse realities of children‟s lives. Children seen as “victims” are more likely to 5