CHILDREN RURAL TO URBAN MIGRATION CAUSES AND ITS EFFECTS ON MIGRANT CHILDREN’S LIFE IN THE CASE OF SODO TOWN, WOLAITA ZONE, SNNPR,

Abstract

Children rural to urban migration was alarmingly increasing due to myriads of driving forces. Therefore, this study aimed to examine children rural to urban migration causes and its effects on migrant children’s life in the case of Sodo town. To attain this objective, the mixed research approaches of qualitative research designs with survey of simple descriptive methods were employed. 146 sample respondents were selected by using snow ball sampling techniques. Besides, key informants, migrant interviewers and FGD participants were purposively selected to collect primary data’s. The data’s were analyzed qualitatively through narration and describing the quantified data’s through simple tabulations forms. The findings on economic factors identified that the low agricultural farmland and unemployment at family level were the dominant economic factors for child migration. In addition, the absence of parents and large family sizes were also taken as the major family related social factors. Moreover, the aspiration to live as a better life, better job options and peer group pressures were also the main pull factors. Furthermore, lack of the expected jobs and homelessness were identified as the difficult living status of migrants. Finally, the migrants were vulnerable to complex socio-economic, physical and psychological abuses, and other health related problems. At the end, the study recommended that the concerned bodies should strongly work on the economic development programmes to improve the rural poor families’ livelihoods, giving more attention to awareness creation works, promoting and strengthening CRC committee and other organizations to overcome children rural to urban migration and