These children have very limited life opportunities, are out of school, have no access to health care nor are ever likely to enter the official job market. In turn they are at risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking ~ its a simple fact that if a child is taken from the streets and trafficked no-one apart from their fellow street kids would ever know, or even care. Around 15,000 children in Mali, many of them street children, are trafficked every few years to the Ivory Coast where they work on cotton and cocoa plantations whilst girls are similarly trafficked there mainly for domestic servitude.

Other children end up on the streets in Mali because they have been sent to harsh Koranic schools mainly at the insistence of their fathers who not only want them schooled in Islamic tradition but also because of poverty and an inability to provide for their children. Part of this 'schooling' is to beg on the streets, an activity that is seen as an integral part of their religious education, though the beatings than ensure for children who don't return with sufficient rewards are overlooked.

This harsh treatment causes many children to run away, and, unable to return home to face further beatings, they end up not just begging on the streets, but living on them. In fact around 30% of street children in Mali state they are street children following abuse by their Koranic masters. Of all these street children it is estimated that around 19% are aged under 13yrs old with the majority (46%) aged 13-16yrs, the remainder are 16yrs and over, although of course, once they reach 18yrs they are no longer classified as children, but they remain on the streets nonetheless.