Patna: Nearly 22,000 children - 1.3 per cent of Patna's population - live on the streets, NGO Save the Children said on Wednesday.

General manager of Save the Children Alka Singh said "42 per cent of the street children sleep on empty stomach for one or more days" while indicating their level of vulnerability. The survey was conducted in Patna in 2015-16.

Singh said: "About 57 per cent of the children, a higher proportion of them girls, defecate in the open. At least 37 per cent face verbal abuse and 13 per cent had admitted to being subjected to abuse."

She was speaking at a seminar for rolling out a standard operating procedure to protect street children. The NGO and the state department of social welfare organised it. "Yarpur Mushari, Patna Junction and Peer Darmariya are where most of these children can be spotted," she added.