As people across the world gather at home for holiday meals and dinners with family and friends, for about 150 million children this will not be such a merry Christmas as they will indeed spend the Christmas holidays in the streets.

According to the United Nations, in fact, that many are the children in the streets. And they are to be found, said the UN in both "the developed and underdeveloped world alike." 

The number of families and children, growing up in the streets is an increasing unaddressed problem.

Street children - a definition adopted by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef) for any child below the age of 18 years for whom the streets or a deficient dwelling have become their habitual residence - are to be found both in the "developed and underdeveloped world" alike. British housing charity Shelter said that at least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain today, Christmas day, the highest number in 12 years.

In the United States,  the latest available figures released from the Department of Education showed that over 1.3 million students experienced homelessness in the 2016-17 school year, the highest number ever registered. The estimated number for children living under this condition is around 2.5 million in the US alone.