Little is known about street children, yet there are widespread ideas about these "miserables," which in turn are found unchecked in academia: young individuals driven to the streets by poverty, violence, lack of opportunities, and the like, condemned there to a lack of prospects and further poverty. This book takes a fresh look at the phenomenon of street children, using the example of Douala, the economic center of Cameroon, and breaks with many established assumptions while dispelling old clichés.