Street children and ‘protective agency’: Exploring young people’s involvement in organised crime in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Children’s agency has dominated discourse about young people in recent years, yet little is known about street children’s agency in regard to involvement in organised crime, particularly in Bangladesh. Drawing on interviews with 22 street children, 80 interviews with criminal justice practitioners and 3 years of participant observation of the Bangladeshi criminal justice system, this article proposes that the concept of ‘protective agency’ is important for understanding how, and why, street children engage with Bangladeshi organised crime group: the mastaans.