LEAVE us alone, we can survive without any help. These are the chilling words from the city's street kids when told there are people and organisations willing to help them.

Mia (not her real name), who was featured in last week's New Sunday Times, said she is quite used to living in the streets and is not ready to return to her parents.

'But I am going back to Kuantan to visit my grandmother, hopefully this Hari Raya. We are in touch constantly but she does not know what I am doing here,' said the 17-year-old prostitute.

'Don't disturb us. Street life is getting harder.

'I have been physically abused by clients, mostly foreigners, but I can survive.

'Deep in my heart, however, I want to resume my studies, get a degree and a decent job for my future,' said the teenager.

Mia's pimp is her 20-year-old boyfriend who used to work as a waiter at a posh restaurant.

The couple makes rat-infested, abandoned buildings their home. Sometimes, they would put up at a friend's rented room.

'If his girlfriend is at home, we have to sleep in abandoned buildings,' the boyfriend said.

A day after the report was published, the couple was rounded up by police and brought to Bukit Aman for urine test.

Both were cleared and released.

Asked if he would marry Mia, the boyfriend said he was planning to but he needed to save money first.

'God-willing, I will marry her. But you think the parents would accept me as their son-in law?' Another teenage boy who lives in the streets said he does not want to think about the future.

'I am quite comfortable here. We survive and I just hope that the authorities leave us alone.

'Maybe I steal and rob for a few ringgit, but we are actually harmless. Even our parents are not bothered, so why should the authorities bother about us?' asked the boy.

Despite claiming he had stopped taking drugs, the teenager took the opportunity to ask for some money to buy heroin.

He also claimed to know a few girls who were willing to sleep with anyone for the right price.

'They are schoolgirls who will come by during weekends. They are 16 years old and were my schoolmates,' he said.

The New Sunday Times reported last week that there were several hundred teenagers from broken families, aged between 14 and 18, living on the streets in various parts of Kuala Lumpur