Human Trafficking in [India] [other countries]Street Children in [India Child Prostitution in [India] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years of the 21st
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FEATURED ARTICLES *** More kids flee abuse than poverty Express News Service, Ahmedabad, November 20, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=210145 [accessed 24 May 2011] Contrary to popular myth, more
children leave home due to a disturbed domestic environment than abject
poverty, according to a report from the Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG)
and the Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR). The study
ranks familial harassment as the top reason behind children running away from
home. On the streets where they live [PDF] www.infochangeindia.org infochangeindia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=725 [accessed 24 May 2011] Police Abuse And Killings Of Street Children In Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, November
1996 www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India4.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] Journey to the streets Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Jul 13, 2008 www.hindu.com/mag/2008/07/13/stories/2008071350080300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] HARSH NECESSITIES - Abuse often drives boys from
their homes, who flee their families to escape
intolerable abuse. These are acts of incredible courage for children so
young, echoed and repeated in the lives of tens of thousands of street
children who decide at very young ages to bravely escape violence and abuse
in their homes — alcoholic fathers, physical and sexual violence — by fending
for themselves, at whatever cost. But we also have children who were lost or
abandoned by their families at such a young age that they do not recall their
origins. The streets are the only home that they remember. NO OTHER HOME - Some are also simply born to
the streets. In Chennai, in particular, we encountered several families which
had lived for several generations on the same piece of pavement. Their great
grandparents came to the city, sometimes 80 years earlier or longer, and the
patriarchs colonised gradually “their” part of the pavement. New generations
were born, one following the next, and they all grew up in the same stretch
of pavement. This was the only home that the large extended family now knew.
Mohan, a street boy in Chennai, said, “Homelessness is not a new thing for
me. I was born into streets, and it was here that I was brought up.” He is
convinced that they will be forced to return to the streets. Likewise,
Mythili is another of “homeless lineage”. When she was a child, her father
was irresponsible, “a drunkard, he never cared for us”, she recounts, and her
mother fed them by selling food cooked by her on the pavements to other
homeless people. ***
ARCHIVES *** CHILDLINE - Toll Free Call 1098 - Night & Day www.childlineindia.org.in/aboutus08.htm [accessed 10 February 2011] CHILDLINE reaches out to all children in
need of care and protection such as: street children, child labourers,
children who have been abused, child victims of flesh trade,
differently-abled children, child addicts, children in conflict with the law,
children in institutions, mentally challenged children, HIV/AIDs infected
children, children affected by conflict and disaster, child political
refugees, children whose families are in crises. The Government of Delhi running
the 'youth' helpline named Yuva Phone line in 24-hour children's helpdesk at CMBT The Hindu, Tamil Nadu - Chennai, Mar 22, 2007 www.hindu.com/2007/03/22/stories/2007032217700300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] The Indian Council for Child
Welfare (ICCW) and Childline has set up a 24-hour helpdesk for children in
the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) complex. "Since last April, we have rescued
about 100 children from the CMBT. Some have run away from home, while others
are being brought to work in the city," said S. A. Jayamary, Street
Children Project Officer, ICCW, Tamil Nadu.
The helpdesk, inaugurated on Wednesday, seeks to strengthen the rescue
efforts at the point of the children's entry into the city. Helplines for children are 1098 and 26260097. Website to track missing children launched Anasuya Menon, The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2007/02/10/stories/2007021013590100.htm [accessed 10 February 2011] Anyone who has lost their child
can post a message on this website and a search will be set in motion
simultaneously in 40 cities in the country.
Launched by Don Bosco National Forum for Youth at Risk in association
with UNICEF, www.missingchildsearch.net will be closely watched and
monitored by child welfare organisations in all major cities in the country
and a search will be generated immediately. The Don Bosco National Forum for
Youth at Risk is a major partner of Childline India Foundation and extends
service to hundreds of children who are victims of war, conflict, natural
calamities, sexual exploitation, trafficking and HIV/AIDS. They also take
care of street and working children. www.missingindiankids.com/index.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] Video Playlists for www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4F18A878F384D4B1 [accessed 24 May 2011] There are an increasing number of street children videos now available that constitute a supplementary source of information for researchers, especially for those who may not have experienced the reality of street children. [Playlist developed by Brian Horne of almudo.com & streetkidnews.blogsome.com] UNICEF – www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india.html [accessed 24 May 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/india.htm [accessed 10 February 2011] [2032] Children work on the
streets doing odd jobs, as rag dealers, shoe shiners and vendors. Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 26 February 2004 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/india2004.html [accessed 10 February 2011] [76] The Committee welcomes the
existence of the Integrated Program for Street Children but remains concerned
at the growing number of street children in the State party, due notably to
the structural situation of the State party as well as to the lack of
proactive policies and programs of prevention and for the support of the
family. The brave tender souls Experience by Salman Nizami, Greater www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Oct/28/the-brave-tender-souls-14.asp
[accessed Oct. 29, 2010] The weather has suddenly turned
colder in valley. The sun is hidden behind the clouds and the jagged peaks of
the mountains which overlook the city are thick with snow. The street
children are sheltering from the chill - huddling in doorways. One boy I
often see in the morning charging around near the guest house in Shalimar
where I was stayed covers his head with his ragged and blackened jacket to
give himself some relief from the cold. There are numerous children who wait
outside the guest house hoping for some work with me on the laptop, According
to them working on laptop means earning good money. Most of them are contract
labourers, shoe shiners, handicraft, fruit, vegetable vendor boys and I have
got to know a number of them. There is Ibrahim whose serious
face contrasts with his pink Mickey Mouse baseball cap, and Irfaan who is
painfully thin, and constantly asks the same question: "Mister, how are
you?" And then there is Wajid, with his brown curly mop of hair and
cheeky smile. My favourite is Aabid, a shy boy, who talks slowly in Kashmiri
language. His sombre expression belies his young age just 13. They all have similar
tales, a father dead due to the Streetkids in grip of STDs Times News Network (The Times of timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Streetkids-in-grip-of-STDs/articleshow/6771541.cms [accessed 24 May 2011] Did you know that almost every child
living on the city's pavements is subjected to sexual abuse? If this doesn't
surprise you, you should know that of these children a vast majority has
contracted sexually transmitted diseases? A recently-concluded survey among
streetchildren in certain parts of the city show that at least 15,000 of them
are either HIV positive or have contracted sexually transmitted diseases like
Syphilis, Gonorrhea, warts, hepatitis and herpes. The survey was recently
conducted by the National Institute for Cholera and Enteric
Diseases (Niced) along with Unicef, a number of NGOs who have been working
with street children. The survey was conducted in 54 wards of the
Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
According to the report, a copy of which is to be sent to the ministry
of health, most of the kids in question are between 18 months and 14 years of
age. While only 15,000 have already contracted infections, almost every
street child that the survey team came across during the survey, has been
exposed to sexual abuse. "The youngest are the worst
off. Kids as young as six to eight years old are forced to have sex night
after night for a paltry sum of Rs 50! Of this they have to give up Rs
40," revealed Goutam Panja, spokesperson of the NGO, Network Positive.
About 30 kids between 18 months and 14 years of age who are affected by
sexual diseases have enrolled in this NGO as members. The survey found that at least 80% of the
affected kids are orphans who have left their original "homes" to
migrate elsewhere and are working as child labourers. "Their right to
work is attached with their willingness to offer themselves for sexual abuse
by employers and sometimes even by clients'. Hidden hunger Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Apr 19, 2009 www.hindu.com/mag/2009/04/19/stories/2009041950150300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] SACRIFICING EVERYTHING ELSE - If they still manage to eat
nutritious food, it is to the sacrifice of almost everything else. In Patna,
we met Deepak studying under a street light. He is the 10-year-old son of a
rickshaw-puller, who lives with his father on the pavement. His father wanted
him to become a “sahib”, and therefore brought him to study in a school in
the city, instead of leaving him in his village with his mother. He is a
caring father, who spends a great deal of what he earns to feed his son well.
He buys for him every night a packet of biscuits for three rupees. This is
his breakfast the next morning. Later the boy eats roti with vegetables
bought from a roadside hotel, and a small cup of milk. Ganesh, Deepak’s
father says, “Even if I don’t eat, I buy a cup of milk for my Deepak
everyday.” In school, there is khichri or gruel in the State financed midday
meal. Ganesh buys an egg for Deepak once in few days. Indian street urchin bank weathers global crisis Frederic Spohr, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (German Press
Agency) DPA, [accessed 24 May 2011] Bank manager Sudhir has never heard
of credit derivates and has no clue about investment funds. He
is just about capable of doing basic arithmetic and calculating interest
rates. But while his counterparts in posh Western office
towers worry about gaping holes in their balance sheets, the 13-year-old's
business is going strong. Still, the bank's staff and
customers are far from free of fear of losing their livelihoods. They are
street children in India's capital, New Delhi. The Wild Dogged ones Samarth Pathak, Hardnews, www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/03/2714 [accessed 24 May 2011] An important aspect of street life
is that most of these kids are in the dawn of puberty. For them, the mix of
testosteronic rush and freedom is the gateway to all kinds of ‘experiments'.
Very early in life, these kids develop a serious dependence on drugs. It is
whiteners and glues for the fattoos (who are beginners, usually aged between
8 to 10 years) while the dadas (or pros, aged 12 to 16 years) do ganja
(marijuana) and charas. "A street kid, on an average, earns about Rs
70-80 a day. Out of this, Rs 30 goes in procuring drugs. One may not get food
to eat, but a day without drugs is impossible. Drug peddlers and addas
operate openly in the bylanes of Paharganj and Jama Masjid right under the
nose of the police," says Javed. Besides drugs, sex is rampant.
Young boys and girls become intimate after facing struggles together and fall
in love. This fondness usually leads to sexual encounters among children.
Homosexuality is common, and it is the younger kids of the lot who end up
being exploited by their gang leaders, pimps, local goons and cops.
"Usually, the kids indulge in unprotected intercourse, which leaves them
vulnerable to all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases. Pregnancies in
adolescent girls are routine. They either deliver the babies and run or lose
their life in the process," says Shekhar. Street children usually live in
groups, and operate as one unit in their areas. At the New Delhi railway station,
territories are specifically divided among numerous gangs, with each gang
‘owning' one platform. Every group consists of 10-14 members, and the eldest
of the lot (and the strongest) is the undisputed leader. Boundaries are meant
to be respected, and no trespassing is tolerated. Fights break out often,
especially over food and money. Still, in the midst of the
hardships, friendship blooms. No street kid eats alone. Food is shared
between all members of the group, even if it means sharing a single loaf of
bread among eight of them. Anil recounts, "Once, one of my friends told
us that there was a wedding near Ajmeri Gate. So we all quietly gate-crashed
and gorged on chicken and biryani. When the guards came, we all grabbed
whatever was around and managed to bring back some food for the others
too." Save the Children in Thomson Reuters Foundation, March 11, 2009 www.globalhealth.org/news/article/10869 [accessed 24 May 2011] Q. Save
the Children is active in A. It's hard to have a precise
figure but thousands of children live in slums that lack the most basic of
amenities such as drainage, water supply, sanitation. And there is no
infrastructure worth the name. After Slumdog Millionaire there has
been much talk in the Western media about the life of children living in
slums in Mumbai but one cannot ignore the reality elsewhere in the country:
Millions of children across towns and cities in India have no access to
education and health care and live in deplorable conditions in slums. Squalor's children honour slum gods Rhys Blakely, The Australian, 24 February 2009 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 24 May 2011] One of the main reservations this
young audience has about the film's accuracy concerns its depiction of the
gang master who rounds up children to set them begging and mutilates them to
make a bigger profit. "It doesn't happen like
that," says Vipin, who claims to be 14. "Most of the beggars stay
with their families. Their mothers and fathers are in charge." The children say that nobody in
their neighbourhood has been mutilated deliberately, similar to the fictional
youngster who isblinded in Slumdog, but they believe thatsuch atrocities do
happen elsewhere inMumbai. Among Chowpatty's child beggars,
the physical scars are more subtle but no less invidious than those depicted
in the film: the small babies who are carried alongside busy roads by young
girl beggars (a practice alluded to in Slumdog) quickly develop acute
respiratory problems and many are malnourished. Ailments such as scabies,
tuberculosis and rickets are common. Health workers who deal with street
families regularly see babies whose skulls have not formed properly because
of calcium deficiencies. Virtually everyone in the audience
has been chased and beaten by the police, the scenario that forms the
backdrop to the film's opening credits. Asked if they find the film
insulting, the children reply with a bemused "no". It shows real
things, they reiterate: poverty, prostitution, murder, theft, blackmail,
religious violence, the exploitation of the weak. It's good for outsiders to
see how they exist. Surviving on a little luck and lots of street smarts Mark Magnier, The www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/asia/la-fg-india-slumdog21-2009feb21,0,1071590.story [accessed 24 May 2011] CAMARADERIE - Sahni joined three other
homeless boys, sleeping under a stairway on Platform 12 or on the roof of a
kiosk on Platform 5 as streams of people rushed past to their families,
weddings, business meetings. Despite occasional
bouts of homesickness, he felt great freedom in living on the street. "It was fun," he said with a
laugh. "Really fun." The
four boys didn't pool what they earned scavenging, selling the items at dingy
recycling stalls near the station. But working in a pack prevented other
ragpickers from muscling in on their turf. On a good day he made $6. But $2
was more typical. Some of their best
hauls came from the long-distance trains arriving on Platform 1, which had
better-quality refuse. They'd scoop up anything of value, including the
railroad's metal trays, before cleaners or railway police chased them away.
Twice Sahni was badly beaten by police, who tended to catch the slow, weak
and inexperienced. After that he was more vigilant. Love and longing on the streets Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Feb 08, 2009 www.hindu.com/mag/2009/02/08/stories/2009020850100300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] LASTING RELATIONSHIPS - For those without a family —
either in the village or on the streets — new bonds often grow on the streets
between strangers, which may prove closer and more loyal than many ties of
blood. As many as a quarter of the homeless people we met said they shared
their life on the streets with adopted relatives. I recall a street boy who adopted
a disabled old man as his grandfather: he would carry him long distance on
his back, and for years save from his own earnings in rag-picking for food,
medicines and even the old man’s addictions. A mentally ill woman occupied the
same space on the pavement outside New Delhi railway station for years, but
would eat only if one particular street boy would bring her food, and the
boy, himself less than 10 years old, made it a point to share his earnings
buying food for her everyday. SHARING TO SURVIVE - Street boys, cut off from their
families in their village and alone in the city, tend to live in gangs,
sharing everything — food, clothes, intoxicants, sleeping under the same
sheet — teaching each other trades like rag-picking and recycling drinking
water bottles, protecting each other from street violence and the police, and
feeding each other in sickness. Cops are villains who make our lives miserable: Street
children Poonam Aggarwal, NDTV www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090082417 [accessed 24 May 2011] Each one them said that policemen
are here to harass them, and that they are not saviours rather villains who
make their lives miserable.
Eight-year-old Kanchan, who begs near one of the temples in the
locality and earns Rs 50-150 a day, was beaten up by the police four months
ago. The stories of these street
children find resonance with the brutal beating of a the girl in Etawah on
Tuesday. "One policeman gave me
Rs 100 and told me to come with him. I refused as I knew that his intentions
were bad," said Suman, a street kid. Slumdog-type tales of hope in Ambika Pandit, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 24 May 2011] The triumph of human spirit that
has made `Slumdog Millionaire' speak in a universal language to a global
audience is not just a celluloid fantasy. Even as you read this and the film
gathers critical and popular acclaim, many people are trying to claw their
way up from grinding poverty to give themselves an identity. There's Vicky Roy, 21 a one-time
ragpicker who is now an accomplished photographer wowing international
audiences. Next month, Vicky will be flying to New York for a six-month photo
assignment, recording the reconstruction of the World Trade Center. He will
also study at the Visual Arts Institute in that city. Then, there's Sanjay Malhotra, 25,
who has gone from being a street bully outside the Sai Baba Temple on Lodhi
Road to an activist working for rehabilitating street children. In fact, he
identifies with the character of Salim in the film. Similary, 18-year-old Rani who
sold knick-knacks at the Kalkaji Temple was saved from marriage with a
28-year-old man at the age of 14. Today, she leads a 5,000-strong group of
street children. Just two days back, she got an award for her endeavour as
part of Clean India campaign in Hyderabad. Plastic banned, street kids hit bull’s eye with jute bags Neha Sinha, The Indian Express News Service, www.expressindia.com/latest-news/plastic-banned-street-kids-hit-bulls-eye-with-jute-bags/415528/ [accessed 24 May 2011] In 2004, a group of street
children and ragpickers got together to make bags from scrap cloth and jute.
Now, following a ban on plastic bags, the jute bags made by their
organisation Lakhshya Badhte Kadam might just have hit the bull’s eye. Ramesh, from the organisation, says the
first orders have begun trickling in. “We have received requests to make
cheap jute bags and newspaper bags for shopkeepers in Hauz Khas and Janpath,”
he says. “We employ young adults, who may have run away from home, and
economically deprived women. The war against begging Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Jan 25, 2009 www.hindu.com/mag/2009/01/25/stories/2009012550090300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] MERE IMPEDIMENTS? - The most recent skirmish in
this sporadic warfare is a recent notification by the Delhi Traffic Police
under the Motor Vehicles Act, which slaps fines of Rs. 1,000 on those who
give alms to people begging at traffic lights. Beggars are therefore seen not
as a spectacular human tragedy but an impediment to traffic. This view is
endorsed by courts. PREJUDICED PERCEPTIONS - The notion that begging is a
crime derives not just from fears of begging mafias, but also from the
conviction that begging is the first resort of the lazy poor. It assumes that
most homeless people beg as a matter of choice. But as a recent study by PUCL-CSDS
in Delhi found, only nine per cent homeless adults beg. Remarkably, we have
found this ratio to apply even to street children, who prefer work — picking
rags, serving tea in eateries or even vocations on the dark side of the law —
to begging, … Slumdog Millionaire: Meet the real Dean Nelson, The Telegraph, 18 Jan 2009 [accessed 24 May 2011] Mohammed says he earns good money
at Victoria Terminus station, where he works with a gang of 12 children, each
blocking 18 seats on several trains – forcing commuters to pay to sit down –
and some making up to £6 a day. "We can make good money if we work
hard," he says. But it's
dangerous work. He has seen knife-fights between gangs, paedophiles preying
on the younger, weaker boys, and gangsters offering drugs – heroin, cannabis
and solvents – to lure children into begging. According to Mohammed, violence is a way
of life, and he and his gang are often the aggressors. Occasionally, when
passengers refuse to pay his charge, he uses his fists to force them.
"If they don't pay, we fight, we beat them up, but it only happens once
a week. Passengers know they have to pay. Fourteen-year-old Rahul left his
family's smallholding three years ago after he beat up a boy at school. He
has an angelic face, but it's grubby and his SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt is
even dirtier. He lives on platform 15, where he began by begging, then
graduated to collecting plastic bottles, before joining Mohammed in the seat‑blocking
scam. "It was difficult at first
because of other boys. They took drugs and beat me up and threatened me with
knives," he says. He makes only 50 rupees a day (60p) because he is
smaller than the others and cannot block as many seats. "I spend my
money on dahl and some vegetables. There's no money for fun. We do have some
freedom, we can go around and see movies." But he wants to go back to
his village one day, where he wants to return to farming. He misses his
family. Street beggar to star striker, Raja is Gethin Chamberlain, The Observer, 4 January 2009 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/04/raja-chinnaswamy-india-football-star [accessed 24 May 2011] Hoping their luck would change,
the boy and his father headed for the town of Some of the other street children
spotted him begging at the station. They told the gullible six-year-old they
could get him a job and one for his father. Instead they took him to meet the
boss of the local begging mafia, a man also called Chinnaswamy, behind a row
of shops. The man threatened him and warned him against trying to escape. "He said I had to give him
100 rupees a day or he would kill my father," Raja said. If he tried to
escape, he was told, the other children would inform on him. One day Raja
failed to hit his target. His father was sick with a fever and the boy needed
to care for him. "In the evening I went
begging and went to see Chinnaswamy to give him the 50 rupees I had made. He
tied me to a stove and hit me with an iron rod," he said. Chinnaswamy
had gathered the other children round to watch, to make sure that they
learned the lesson. The rod was heated on the stove until it was red hot.
Raja rolls down his sock to show the scars. There is another scar to the left
of one eye from where he was burned with a cigarette. The god of small children Nazia Mallick, Ode Magazine, December 10, 2008 www.odemagazine.com/blogs/readers_blog/4115/the_god_of_small_children [accessed 24 May 2011] HOW DO THEY END UP ON THE STREETS? - Basically it is the need for
survival. These children come from very poor, violent and broken homes. There
are many kids who have been literally abandoned by their parents/relatives or
choose to leave home due to constant abuse such as physical, mental and
sexual exploitation. Their tolerance level breaks at some point, leading to
the drastic decision of running away.
Those who run away from home are either those who wanted to study and
work but were not allowed to, or they ran away from remote villages to
experience the perceived excitement of city life. Such children are abducted
and pushed into begging. Some are forced into the street by their parents,
when the parents are unable to feed and nourish them. An UNICEF study found that almost
40,000 children die every day in developing countries, 25% of which are in
India. Studies indicate that the
street children in India suffer from various chronic diseases and
malnourishment. Being constantly exposed to dirt, smoke and other
environmental hazards, their health condition is poor. Many suffer from
serious diseases like TB, leprosy, typhoid, malaria, jaundice and
liver/kidney disorders. There are cases of scabies, gangrene, broken limbs
and epilepsy. Fatal diseases like HIV & AIDS is also spreading widely
among them due to high incidence of sexual abuse and exploitation. A large
number have genital lesions and suggestions of secondary syphilis. All these
children have little or no family support. Street children a ‘security threat’ at rly station Manoj More, The Indian Express News Service, Dec 03, 2008 www.expressindia.com/latest-news/street-children-a-security-threat-at-rly-station/393396/ [accessed 24 May 2011] Officials said from time to time
they have taken up the issue with the Government Railway Police (GRP), but
the situation hadn’t changed one bit. They keep coming on the station
premises, roam all over the place, sleep anywhere they want, quarrel among
themselves and even steal passenger luggage and parcels arriving from other
cities. Their number is around 50. “We want these kids out. They are a
nuisance and a security threat,” said Divisional Railway Manager D K Jain.
The biggest danger, said Jain, was that these youth can be bought over
easily. “Many of them are addicted to
drugs. Some of them beg. So you cannot deny the possibility that these
children will be used by miscreants to create trouble,” Jain said. The Railway is also hassled by thefts of
parcels. “In the night, you will find them sleeping on the parcels. They
steal items from these parcels by using razors or knives. We have to
compensate commuters for the loss,” said Y K Singh of Central Railway. In
2007, 13 thefts of parcels were reported while this year the number has risen
to 15. A bank for street children Piya Kochhar, Radio www.featurez.com/bank_for_street_children.html [accessed 19 September 2011] Street children running a bank for
other street children. The idea might sound incongruous, but over 8,000
street children around the world are saving some of their meager earnings to
build a better life. TREASURE CHEST - In Delhi alone, 2000 street
children have accounts in the 12 Khazana branches around the city. Most of
these "branches" are located in make-shift posts at railway
stations and crowded marketplaces... basically, anywhere where street
children hang out. Chasms between children Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Oct 05, 2008 www.hindu.com/mag/2008/10/05/stories/2008100550060300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] A child was talking of how he lost
his home and ended up on the streets. He was travelling with his parents in a
crowded train when he was very young. He got off the compartment at a
station, and the train left with his mother and father. He never found his
parents again. For most of his childhood years, he grew up on railway
platforms with other homeless children as his only family, earning his food
through selling water bottles or picking rags, battling sexual abuse and
police batons, seeking solace in drugs and the comradeship of his street
friends. Ragpickers who saved Delhi Sidharth Pandey, NDTV www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/mumbaiterrorstrike/Story.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080065423&type=News [accessed 24 May 2011] Without them However, NGOs say that this is a
bitter irony as the capital's 1 lakh street children are often at the
receiving end of the law. Connaught
Place, the heart of Delhi, also home to thousands of street-children who are
its eyes and ears but go unnoticed, unheard.
It's been a long walk for Javed and Sunil, both in their teens, from
broken families one from Bareily the other from Madhya Pradesh. A year ago, they ran away from their homes
and came to Delhi looking for work. But all they managed to do is this risky
business especially after live bombs were found in dustbins on Saturday. "We are scared as we pick garbage and
especially from dustbins it could be bomb and something may happen but what
to do, it's about survival," said Mohammad Javed, ragpicker. The two walk over five kilometers each day,
looking for stuff that can be sold to scrap dealers, 40-50 rupees is all they
earn, life on the streets is not easy. The former street kid who got his life back in focus www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=832982 [Last access date unavailable] Because of problems at school, he
fled his West Bengal home at the age of 11 and sought shelter on the streets
of Every sunrise has a sunset: Lives on the streets Anshul Tewari, merinews, Aug 11, 2008 www.merinews.com/article/every-sunrise-has-a-sunset-lives-on-the-streets/139154.shtml [accessed 24 May 2011] CHILDREN
CUT SHORT: TREATMENT OF STREET CHILDREN - Street children in MAJOR
PROBLEM THEY FACE: AIDS
- One of the major problems the children face is AIDS. The street children at the railway stations
are worst affected and 35 per cent of them have Tuberculosis, the first
symptom of AIDS. More than five million children on Indian streets are HIV positive. Of these, girls are the worst affected.
They are raped, taken away by touts and sold in brothels. Not a single girl
at the New Delhi railway station has been spared. In 1997, the Inter Press News Service wrote
an article stating that the street children in India are most vulnerable to
AIDS. The article brought to the fore the irony of one such girl among
millions. Uma (name changed) a nine-year old girl was raped by a gang of
homeless boys at the New Delhi railway station, where she also lived. The
same happened over and over again. This led to the poor child delivering a
still born baby Living off the city's mean streets Deepa Suryanarayan, Daily News & Analysis DNA, Mumbai,
Jul 25, 2008 www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_living-off-the-citys-mean-streets_1179640 [accessed 24 May 2011] According to the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, The fate of a girl is very
different from that of a boy on the street. "The average girl arriving
in the city will last about 15 minutes before being approached by a person
posing as a friendly stranger offering help," says Valerie Tripp of an
NGO Saathi. "More often than not, these friendly strangers are agents
who whisk away the unsuspecting girl to a brothel." As for the boys, the railway
platform is their permanent home. "They start with begging and selling
knick-knacks, and when they get no money, they turn to crime," says
Kasbe. "In many cases these children are picked by criminals to run
errands." Kasbe says these street children
have a network of their own. "Most children who have been in the city
for 15 days know where they can find free food," he says. The children form
groups and head towards temples or shelters where food is distributed free,
he says. They also know that they can find work in places like small hotels
and shops. The children of a street god Surekha S & Humaira Ansari, Daily News & Analysis
DNA, Mumbai, Jul 24, 2008 www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_the-children-of-a-street-god_1179421 [accessed 24 May 2011] Even before the train comes to a
halt, what one sees is a mad scramble of young lads, as they leap into the
compartments, dodging passengers to collect leftover food. It's with a sense
of achievement that they emerge victoriously with packets of half eaten
kurkure, dahi cups, mineral water, omelettes, Appy Fizz etc. These kids who many Mumbaikars shun, or
simply take for granted as being part of the urbanscape, earn about Rs50 to
60 a day. Some sell newspapers, some pick up plastic litter to sell to the
local bangarwalla, others make their money carrying luggage and doing odd
jobs. Newspaper-vending, the most
predominant occupation, also helps the ones who can read, know about the
happenings in the city. It also gives the kids information about the latest
film releases. So it's no surprise to hear the titles Hancock and Jane Tu
being mentioned. The kids catch up on the films at their favourite cinemas,
namely Maratha Mandir and Gaiety.
Coming from diverse parts of the country - Bihar, Delhi, Uttar
Pradesh, and the interior of Maharashtra - these kids live life on their own
terms; enjoying their life away from home as much as they can. Flintoff, an 18-year-old boy from
Madgaon came to Mumbai at the age of nine to become a film hero. But now, he
says philosophically, "Everyone comes here to become a hero but ends up
being a villain." He ran away from home to escape a drunkard for a
father, and has since been living on the streets of Mumbai. He has no wish to
return home. According to him: "We get food, a place to sleep, some
money, and most important of all unrestricted freedom. What more do we
want?" But his words contradict
his wish that 11-year-old Irfan, who joined his group recently, be taken away
in order to lead a better life. Unaware of the harsh realities of street
life, Irfan ran away from his home in Umarkhand to educate himself in Mumbai.
Though the kids paint a rosy
picture of life, they are also aware of its grim realities. Apart from
sustaining themselves, what they fear most is the beatings met out by the
police. Entering the trains to procure meals, sleeping on platforms by night
invite police lathis. But it is
drug-addiction that is the biggest cause for concern, when it comes to street
children, according to the city's NGOs. Giving children a voice: street wise www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/street.wise [Last access date unavailable] Shekhar was 12 when he ran away
from his home in On arrival in Delhi, Shekhar met
another street kid who pointed him to the temple for a free meal. Shekhar
joined the estimated one million children who make their homes on the streets
of Delhi, ekeing out a living - rag picking, shoe shining and in some cases,
pickpocketing and drug peddling. Not all of the children are runaways: some
are abandoned, or neglected; others work on the streets returning home to
sleep. For these children the street is a work place, and they are an
integral part of the city's economy. Some, like Shekhar, work sweeping the
train cars and collecting any left over food. Rag pickers and bottle
collectors play a useful role in a city with no real recycling programme or
general rubbish collection. Delhi's streets are an urban
jungle where each day is spent battling against hunger, abuse, illness and
fear. The popular perception of the street children is of lawless,
crime-prone outcasts. Police and local officials use violence and
intimidation widely against them. The government response is to round the
children up and dump them in jail-like remand homes. Journey to the streets Harsh Mander, The Hindu, Jul 13, 2008 www.hindu.com/mag/2008/07/13/stories/2008071350080300.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] HARSH NECESSITIES - Abuse often drives boys from
their homes, who flee their families to escape
intolerable abuse. These are acts of incredible courage for children so
young, echoed and repeated in the lives of tens of thousands of street
children who decide at very young ages to bravely escape violence and abuse
in their homes — alcoholic fathers, physical and sexual violence — by fending
for themselves, at whatever cost. But we also have children who were lost or
abandoned by their families at such a young age that they do not recall their
origins. The streets are the only home that they remember. NO OTHER HOME - Some are also simply born to
the streets. In Chennai, in particular, we encountered several families which
had lived for several generations on the same piece of pavement. Their great
grandparents came to the city, sometimes 80 years earlier or longer, and the
patriarchs colonised gradually “their” part of the pavement. New generations
were born, one following the next, and they all grew up in the same stretch
of pavement. This was the only home that the large extended family now knew.
Mohan, a street boy in Chennai, said, “Homelessness is not a new thing for
me. I was born into streets, and it was here that I was brought up.” He is
convinced that they will be forced to return to the streets. Likewise,
Mythili is another of “homeless lineage”. When she was a child, her father
was irresponsible, “a drunkard, he never cared for us”, she recounts, and her
mother fed them by selling food cooked by her on the pavements to other
homeless people. The future of capitalism Arun Maira, The Economic Times ET Bureau, Jul 10, 2008 [accessed 24 May 2011] I attended a workshop with 60
school children in Street children struggle to survive in Mumbai Shilpa Hassani, merinews, Jun 03, 2008 www.merinews.com/article/street-children-struggle-to-survive-in-mumbai/135153.shtml [accessed 24 May 2011] Most In pictures: Indian railways' runaway children BBC News [accessed 24 May 2011] CBI goes after foster parents in child racket K Praveen Kumar, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 10 February 2011] The case had originated on the
basis of complaints from parents about missing children. One of them, the
child of Kathiravel and Nagamani, pavement-dwellers
in Pulianthope, had been allegedly kidnapped and sold to a Dutch couple. Similarly, the four-year-old child of
Sylvia, a woman from Otteri, was kidnapped from an auto and sold to a couple
in Australia. Another couple from the city had lost their one-and-a-half-year
old child, who was traced to the US. The racket was busted in the city
in the first week of May 2005 after the Otteri police received specific
information about kidnapping of children in and around Otteri. The police team then started investigations
and arrested seven people identified as Varadharajan, Sheikh Dawood, Navjeen,
Sabeera, Manoharan, Salima and K.T. Dawood. They subsequently traced the
racket to an illegal adoption agency, Malaysian Social Service, which had
kidnapped street children and sold
them to foreigners after forging certificates. The case was subsequently
transferred to the Crime Branch. - htsc Promoter held for raping street children The Statesman, Kolkata, 13 May 2008 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 24 May 2011] An NGO informed the city
police few months ago that they received complaints of street children being
sexually abused by few taxi drivers at night. The NGO has already
rescued some of the abused girls who are now staying in a shelter
home. A senior city police officer said that initiatives have been taken
to protect street children from being abused. In a first, BMC gets talking about street children’s
health Express News Service, Mumbai, May 10, 2008 www.expressindia.com/latest-news/In-a-first-BMC-gets-talking-about-street-childrens-health/307730/ [accessed 24 May 2011] Recently, we took a friend to the Mumbai has an estimated 1.5 lakh
street children, who take refuge at railway stations, pavements and shelter
homes, with little or no access to healthcare. Aras noted that as most street
children do not have bathing and toilet facilities, many suffer from chronic
diseases like asthma and dysentery. Dr
Pallavi Shelke from Sion Hospital who attended Friday’s session also noted
that respiratory tract infection was most common, along with complaints of
diarrhoea, sticky stools, abdominal pain and worm infestation, scabies,
boils, malnutrition. A glimpse at life on the streets in India Judy Stoffman, The www.thestar.com/Travel/article/417529 [accessed 24 May 2011] It's a place he knows first-hand.
Shekhar was born in Bihar, the poorest of India's 28 states, and ran away at
age 12, jumping on a train and eluding ticket takers all the way to
Delhi. "Basically, most of the children
run away from the country because of poverty; they know they are a burden to
their families," he says. He quickly found that the children
look out for one another. "When I
got here, I met another rag picker and he said `Are you hungry?' and he took
me to the Sisganj Gurdwara (Sikh temple) for a free meal," Shekhar
recalls. These children, it turns out, are
not an anomaly, but integrated into the city's economy. They are not beggars – they work sweeping
the train cars and collecting any leftover food. First-class trains are
particularly good. "My friend got
into a car with a wedding party and got two pieces of chicken," he
says. From a bridge between the
platforms, he points out some boys jumping between the tracks, collecting
empty plastic water bottles, which fetch half a rupee each. They make, he says, 60 to 70
rupees a day or about $2. In a nook
below the overpass, a child is sleeping under a piece of cardboard. We walk past a juice seller who lets children
sleep on top of his booth, and acts as a banker, keeping their scant rupees
safe from theft. Another shop on the
platform is Chemist Corner, where sick children go to buy herbal
medicines. "Street children are
crazy about Bollywood movies," says Shekhar. "Some will hop the
train to Mumbai to see a premiere. They play hide and seek with the railway
police; if they are caught they get badly beaten." Geetanjali Krishna: Children of a lesser god Geetanjali Krishna, Business Standard, www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=320539 [accessed 24 May 2011] “It takes most children less than
a month on the streets to take to glue,” said Amit, who started Jamghat. He
and his friends estimate that almost every single child on the streets of
Delhi has been sexually, physically or mentally abused. The children face
other problems as well — the money they make begging, pushing carts or as
coolies, is more often than not, snatched by older residents of the park,
even by the police themselves. “It is sad,” said Amit, “but the fact is that
today, few are willing to take on the responsibility of these troubled
children.” Streetsmart bankers Meenakshi Sinha, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 24 May 2011] This red-and- yellow enclosure is
the Children's Development Bank (CDB) — run by street children, exclusively
for street children. As soon as the
bank opens at 6:30 pm (unlike regular banks, CDB operates only in the evening
because street children work during the day), its young customers line up to
make withdrawals or deposit their day's
earnings. Thirteen-year-old Durgesh
waits patiently as the cashier — who is as old as Durgesh — makes an entry in
his passbook and hands him a note of Rs 50.
Apart from his daily expenses and an occasional movie outing, Durgesh
is saving up hard to go home. "The bank is a safe place to deposit my
money," he says. There are many
like him — runaways from desperately poor rural homes who join the big city's
floating population of ragpickers and street vendors. "Most of them are
boys; there aren't many girls on the streets," says Suman Sachdeva,
development manager of Butterflies, the NGO behind the initiative. The bank opens for an hour everyday — a
busy time for its manager-cum-cashier, a nominated child volunteer who runs
the affairs. The job is rotated every six months, giving youngsters (usually
in the 12-14 age group) a chance to learn accounting and be responsible with
money. Child-beggars: Battering experiences, bitter future Sharmila Govande, merinews, Feb 26, 2008 www.merinews.com/article/child-beggars-battering-experiences-bitter-future/130553.shtml [accessed 24 May 2011] The life of a child beggar is very
daunting and frightful. Akbar (name changed) shivers every time he recollects
the days when he was forced to beg. He was beaten, assaulted, tortured
whenever he was not able to bring in his daily quota of earnings. He took to
pick pocketing and other petty crimes in order to protect himself from the
wrath of his dealer. He took to smelling glue to overcome his hunger. He did
not have a bath for months and used any open space to defecate. Fortunately, he was rescued by an NGO
working for street children. “I was lucky, since I was an orphan. Didi did
not have to seek any ones permission for taking me to their shelter. Many
others continued suffering as it was their own parents who forced them into
begging.” PMC to build a nest for street kids Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 24 May 2011] In a unique initiative, the Pune
Municipal Corporation (PMC) has undertaken a project to provide shelter to
all street children in the city. The 'Gharte' (Nest) project will ensure that
no child on the street is left without care.
If the PMC successfully implements the scheme, it will be the first
civic body in the country to provide 100 per cent rehabilitation of street children. "We will ensure that the childhood of
no kid is destroyed on the streets. It is our social responsibility to look
after these children. It is possible to take care of street kids whose lives
are getting wasted," municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said
while speaking to TOI. The
beneficiaries of the project will be children of single parent or no parent,
children of sex workers, runaway children and children of parents who do not
care for them. New scheme gives street kids home, school Preeti Jha, The Indian Express News Service, www.expressindia.com/latest-news/New-scheme-gives-street-kids-home-school/261144/ [accessed 24 May 2011] By opening a school that runs
classes during the day and provides meals and secure lodgings at night, the
DoE hopes it will attract and educate both students who have never enrolled
in a school and those who would otherwise drop out to earn a livelihood.
“We’re not opening a children’s home,” stressed Education Secretary Rina Ray,
“but we are trying to address a few of the underlying problems that prevent
street children or child labourers, for instance, from going to school.” In a simultaneous move, destitute
women will also be recruited to live alongside groups of five or six
students--a concept inspired by NGO SOS-India, which runs children’s villages
across the country for orphaned and abandoned children, uniquely teaming up a
childcare professional, known as a mother, with a child. “The mothers will be
able to guide and aid their group of children’s educational and general
development,” said Ray. Christmas sales bring cheer to street children Indo-Asian News Service IANS, 25 December 2007 [accessed 24 May 2011] Sanjida, heavily pregnant and a
young mother of two, similarly is really happy with the sales. “I have sold
50 such caps in two days,” she smiled, sitting on the pavement with her
children in south Budget for children neglects health, protection Hemlata Verma, The Indian Express News Service, Shimla,
Dec 25, 2007 www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Budget-for-children-neglects-health-protection/253796/ [accessed 24 May 2011] A look at the state budget for
children in the past four years reveals that the government’s investment in
the education sector has been at the cost of children’s requirement of health
and protection facilities. As a result, the state has seen a sharp rise in
the number of street children and very little improvement in the condition of
58 per cent anaemic children (between 6-35 months age). Besides, health and
protection, requirements of adolescents have also remained totally
neglected. This was revealed in a
report, “Analysis of State’s Priorities Towards Children”, released by
Himachal Pradesh Voluntary Health Association (HPVHA) in collaboration with
Centre for Child Rights. The report was recently released by Governor V.S.
Kokje. Childhood marred with sex and drugs Kishalay Bhattacharjee, NDTV, Dimpaur, December 22, 2007 www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070036638&ch=12/22/2007%201:40:00%20PM [accessed 25 May 2011] Street children in the north-east
are trapped in a vicious circle of substance and sexual abuse. This street
culture drives them to a life of theft.
AB's (name protected) home are the streets of Dimapur, where he's
spent all his 17 years. Except the time he went to jail but that's not his
concern right now. He is back and
trying to fit back to the only life he has had, drugs, theft and unsafe
sex. "I live on the footpath,
pick up scrap, take dendrite and drugs. We were told about HIV, through the
injections that we take we know that HIV can be transmitted. Then I went to
jail for drugs and theft, we were also told about condom use. Mom left and
dad married someone else so he left. I am here in Dimpaur." Jonathan Allen, Reuters, in.reuters.com/article/2007/12/17/idINIndia-31018320071217 [accessed 25 May 2011] Eleven-year-old Anurag never went
to school because he had to scavenge through "I
never had a home, so it's not like I've left home," he said, holding
hands with his new best friend, 10-year-old Rahul. "I ran away from home because they
wouldn't send me to school," adds Rahul, explaining that his parents sent
him to work at a motorcycle repair shop on Delhi's outskirts. Anurag and Rahul are among 30 homeless
children involved in a pilot project in Delhi, giving them housing and
"bridging" classes to help them catch up on lost years of
schooling. The Herald ( [accessed 25 May 2011] The father of six is not alone. In
the months leading up to the games, more than 5000 families have been forced
from their homes as the city authorities demolished hundreds of slums and
encampments around New Delhi, a crowded, traffic-choked city of 14 million
people. New Delhi already has 150,000
homeless residents - the vast majority of them women and children - a
staggering figure that critics say is largely ignored by city leaders. But Delhi's handling of its
homeless population has brought into sharp focus a larger problem facing
India, an emerging superpower where the needs of the country's 70 million
homeless, mostly women and children, are often brushed aside as the gap
widens between the haves and the have-nots. In her own words: Katy French in Calcutta Katy French, October 07 2007 www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/in-her-own-words-katy-french-in-calcutta-13384016.html [accessed 25 May 2011] These children have no homes, no
water, no food, no health service, and no education. They are alone. Often
children as young as four are thrown on to the streets by their own mother
and father, simply because they cannot provide for them. They are seen more
as a burden than a blessing. Many are maimed; others are handicapped, yet
they are nonetheless discarded because they cannot contribute. All are just little children left wondering
what to do and where to go. They are at the mercy of those who would use and
abuse them, rather than help them. Kids earn brownies for companies Business Standard BS, www.rediff.com/money/2007/nov/20kids.htm [accessed 25 May 2011] Can islands of welfare initiatives
change the larger picture for children in Says Pooran Pandey, who heads
Times Foundation: "These scattered efforts, unless put together, cannot
have an impact. For, there is no guarantee that good models are replicated
with every company trying to re-invent the wheel." HIV Prevention among street children in Mohammed MU; International Conference on AIDS -- Int Conf
AIDS. 2002 Jul 7-12; 14: abstract no. WeOrD1273, S.V.University, Dept. of
Population Studies, Tirupati - gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102253115.html [accessed 25 May 2011] Children’s Day under the shadow of the rape of childhood Rishabh, merinews, Nov 13, 2007 www.merinews.com/article/childrens-day-under-the-shadow-of-the-rape-of-childhood/127664.shtml [accessed 25 May 2011] The definition of a ‘child’ in the Indian legal and policy
framework is someone below 18 years. Our laws are neither child friendly nor
child oriented. Here are few figures: - sccp q Less than half of India’s children
between the age of six and 14 go to school. q Only 38 per cent of children below
two years are immunised. q Over 50 per cent children are
malnourished. q One out of every six girls does not
live to see her 15th birthday. q Of 12 million girls born, one
million do not see their first birthday. q Females are victimised far more
than males in their childhood. q 53 per cent of girls in the age
group of five to nine years are illiterate. q There are two million child
commercial sex workers between the age of five and 15 years. q 17 million children in India work
out of compulsion, not out of choice. Giving At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] CHILDREN OF THE STREETS - They're seen just about
everywhere in Lost, runaway street children find their way back home via
cyberspace Mihika Basu, The Indian Express News Service, Mumbai,
November 02, 2007 [accessed 25 May 2011] Rinku is one among several
children who run away from home everyday in search of a better life in Mumbai
but ultimately end up on its streets. Thanks to the consistent efforts of the
shelter, several like him are able to relocate their families though a
homelink website (www.homelink.in) launched in July this year. Opportunists Allegedly Sponsoring Street Beggars in Voice of www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2007-10-23-voa40-66518332.html?CFTOKEN=95101467&CFID=276666266 [accessed 25 May 2011] “The way these children were
picking [taking] the money was rather professional. All of them were
using a [one] particular arm (the right arm) they wave it in front of your
face, and when they pick [take] the money you see them running to an adult
who is sited [waiting] on the side of the road – which brought out the
picture that this was an organized arrangement assisted by politicians.” Lokwir John, a 12-year-old
Karimajog beggar denied this. He told me that he was not attending
school and came to Kampala to seek money for food. He said his uncle put him
on a bus with other Karamoja families going to Kampala for a better
life. He said every week, he sends his money home to his mother in the
village. ‘Street Dreams’ come true in life and on film for two
shutterbugs Upneet Pansare, The Indian Express News Service, Mumbai,
Oct 23, 2007 [accessed 25 May 2011] At 11, both Dont erazeus out... Nina C George, This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] Following their path Suhas
discovered that these children consume Erazex during late evening and at
night. Open drains, parks, and empty spaces serve as ideal places where they
sit in a large group and sniff off a cloth which they pass from one person to
another. “There’s a dog accompanying every gang. These are good watch dogs
and protect these children from police, underworld gangsters or by older
street boys who bully them and use them to achieve their own ends,” explains
Suhas. No Child’s Play This Screen www.screenindia.com/old/fullstory.php?content_id=17502 [accessed 25 May 2011] But more than creating awareness
about these issues, our aim is to stress the need for education of these
children. By employing them as domestics or giving them other jobs, we think
we get them out of a financial crisis, but in the bargain we are depriving
them of their basic right of…..Education. Street children campaign for their rights in Kolkata The Indian Express News Service, Kolkata, Oct 13, 2007 www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Street-children-campaign-for-their-rights-in-Kolkata/227934/ [accessed 25 May 2011] They have no place to stay and
have made the streets their home. Armed with placards requesting the
authorities concerned not to evict them, more than 80 street children below
the age of 15 years marched down the crowded streets of north Kolkata on
Friday with their parents by their side. For Gita Paswan, a Class I
student, the march was to stop the police from destroying their shanties and
separating them from their parents. Dinesh (13), a school dropout was there
to make people aware of the plight of others like him. “Police come and evict
us from our homes. The worst sufferers are those who go to schools as there
is little time to study if one stays on the streets,” he said. 7.6 million children are still out of the school, says
official The Hindu, Karnataka - www.hindu.com/2007/10/05/stories/2007100558961100.htm [accessed 25 May 2011] There are 7.6 million children who
are out of school in Admitting that retention of
children in schools was a worrying issue, he said the next area of priority
would be “hard to reach” children such as street children and those in slums.
The drop out rate was particularly high among children from minority
communities and those from Scheduled Tribes, he said. Seemi PashaSeemi Pasha , Indian News Channel CNN-IBN News,
ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-street-kid-becomes-professional-photographer/49538-19.html [accessed 25 May 2011] Vicky Roy's big city dream started
as a rag picker. After picking up empty bottles and selling them for Rs 5
each, he graduated to working in a dhaba near the New Delhi Railway
Station. “I ran away from home in
1999. The first day I was here, I slept at the railway station,” says
Vicky. But today Vicky is a
photographer with exhibitions at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi as well as
in London. “Street boys are usually very
tough but Vicky was a very soft boy. He showed interest in photography so we
put him in touch with a professional,” says Founder, Salaam Balak Trust,
Praveen Nair. With several exhibitions
lined up for his work in India and abroad, Vicky has surely proved that if
given an opportunity even a street kid change his destiny. Auto rickshaw driver turns savoir of street children Asian News International ANI, news.webindia123.com/news/ar_showdetails.asp?id=709150311&cat=&n_date=20070915 [accessed 25 May 2011] Hundereds of street children in Four SSC passouts were drug addicts 10 yrs ago www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=2&contentid=200706270235551254888984f [Last access date unavailable] Four street children who were
addicted to drugs 10 years ago appeared for the SSC exams this year and
passed with flying colours. Kashyap, who secured 76 per cent,
said he wanted to become an artist and study at the J J School of Art. He
said that due to poverty and ill-treatment by parents, he ran away from his
home in a Jharkhand village and reached CST station where he spent a
year. “Initially, I begged. Later, I
befriended some people, who taught me to work as a coolie. When I did not
have sufficient food, a friend suggested that drugs could suppress hunger,”
he said. He became a habitual drug user till he was offered help by the
NGO. Support officials said that such
children are first sent for detoxification and then to the rehabilitation
department, a process that takes about six months. Once this is through, they
are able to go to school. Satinder Bains, Punjab Newsline, www.punjabnewsline.com/content/view/5572/38/ [accessed 25 May 2011] With a view to empowering the
street children and to ensure their rehabilitation as productive members of
society, the Punjab Governor and Administration Union Territory, Chandigarh,
Gen. (Retd.) S.F. Rodrigues, Friday laid the foundation stone of a vocational
training center for 900 street children near village Maloya, which will be
fully equipped with facilities of Education, Vocational Training, Residential
facilities, playground and other necessary support structures. Agnes Chan, The search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070906f1.html [accessed 25 May 2011] Eighty million people are
considered middle and upper class in No one knows exactly how many
street people there are, but the number of street children has been estimated
by local child-rights NGO AMRAE at 200,000. The scale of homelessness is
simply mind-boggling. Many children are born into unfortunate situations
where the huge divide between the haves and have-nots depends not only on
materialistic issues but on class and culture: It is about where people were
born, what name they bear, their gender and what religion they follow. All
these factors influence the opportunities a child will receive in life.
Everyone is supposedly born equal, but generations of Indian children have
endured the same unfortunate destination. From polishing shoes to driving rickshaw, he works his way
towards a better future Vikram Rautela, The Indian Express News Service,
Ahmedabad, August 29, 2007 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=253422 [accessed 25 May 2011] As a 10-year-old boy, he used to
move around on city roads with a shoe polish box slung around on his
shoulders. Then known as ‘Paka’ polishwala, Jitesh Parmar used to polish
people’s shoes near Dilli Darwaja.
Now, after more than a decade, Parmar aspires to become a civil
servant. The 21-year-old youth is doing MCom from a college in the city. Parmar’s life did not change overnight _
and nor did he find any magic wand. It was a worker from city-based voluntary
organisation, Rachanatmak Abhigam Trust, who got a school dropout Parmar
admitted to a school again. The NGO
also arranged for a free of cost vocational training for Parmar at its
training and rehabilitation centre for street children, so that he could earn
while studying and not become a liability on his poor parents. Piggy bankers Neha Sinha, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=251633 [accessed 25 May 2011] In a corner of a grubby MCD night
shelter, children queue up with their ‘passports’ and their pennies at the
counter of the Children’s Development Bank. At the end of a hard day’s work,
this is where they ‘invest’ their money — in “chalu accounts”. The award-winning Children’s
Development Bank, set up with help from the NGO Butterflies, is run by
children and has street children for its customers. Red FM extends social activities with 'Dil Se' Indiantelevision.com Team, Mumbai, 13 August 2007 www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k7/aug/augmam56.php [accessed 25 May 2011] Red FM Delhi in association with
the NGO Centre for Equity Studies has launched a social campaign 'Dil Se' to
provide all-round care for street children in the city. The campaign is
supported by the Department of Education, Government of Delhi under the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). As part of the
campaign, Red FM and the NGO will refurbish government schools and other
buildings to accommodate street children with arrangement for boarding and
lodging. In Plain Sight but Invisible Shelley Seale, Worldpress, July 19, 2007 www.worldpress.org/Asia/2868.cfm [accessed 25 May 2011] When brought face to face with
such children — an all-too-common occurrence virtually everywhere in Meet the heroes www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=inbombay&xfile=July2007_inbombay_standard13453 [Last access date unavailable] It works at various levels, which
are an Outreach program which reaches out to street children and encourages
them to leave their street life, a Drop-in Centre, which provides basic
facilities for children who decide to continue to live on the street, a 24
hour Open House for street children with any problem, a Residential Home for
the children, a Drug De-addiction and Therapeutic Community, a Research and
Development centre, which publishes the learning's of the organisation, a
Rural Development Program and an Urban Slum Development program which aims at
empowering people at the grass root level and improving their quality of life
and preventing the children from leaving their homes for the street. Government Programme To News Post At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] The Integrated Programme for
Street Children includes the setting up of 24-hour drop-in shelters with
facilities for night stay, safe drinking water, bathrooms, latrines,
first-aid and recreation, an official release said here. The programme also includes non-formal
education and training facilities for meaningful vocations, trades and skills
to enhance their earning capacity. At this meet, small voices address big issues Pulkit Vasudha, The Indian Express News Service,
Ahmedabad, July 03, 2007 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=243967 [accessed 25 May 2011] The Sheetal Waghela, 13, expressed her
concern about the insensitivity with which the police dealt with street
children. “Though not all policemen are bad to us, street children are terrified
at the sight of policemen,” she said. NGO to move HC seeking ban on use of ‘white ink’ Sobhana K, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=242852 [accessed 25 May 2011] An NGO is planning to file a public interest litigation in the High Court seeking a
ban on correction fluids—used in offices—and adhesives used for repairing
tyres. The NGO decided to file the
petition after a study conducted by it showed that more than 70 per cent of
street children are addicted to drugs and over 50 per cent of them inhale
such “cheap drugs”. The study by
Chetna (Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action) also states that
“white fluid” worth over Rs 60 lakh is bought by these street children in
Delhi every day. “The liquid is not
used any longer in offices. A ban on the liquid will save the lives of many
street children,” said Sanjay Gupta, director, CHETNA. A New LIfe Getting Children off the Streets Gita Pullapilly, Frontline/World, June 21, 2007 www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2007/06/india_street_ch.html [accessed 25 May 2011] Although life on the streets is
harsh and dangerous, it has a certain allure. According to Koshy and his
team, it takes roughly a month for a child to become addicted to hustling.
Earning money from rag-picking and collecting recyclables, the children
quickly bond with each other and become accustomed to the relative freedom of
street life. Once they have enough rupees, they buy food, the occasional
luxury of a ticket to see a movie in an air-conditioned theater, and cheap
drugs. "The street addiction is very strong," says Dasaka, who's
affectionately known as Anu Auntie. Kolkata registers its young street dwellers Asian News International ANI, June 19, 2007 www.andhranews.net/India/2007/June/19-Kolkata-registers-5260.asp [accessed 25 May 2011] Civic authorities in Kolkata have
registered thousands of its street children enabling them access to the
state's social security system. Civic
authorities handed out birth certificates to about 50,000 street children in
the city, a pre-requisite for access to any government welfare scheme. The children said that the
certificate would entitle them to things they were deprived of. "I have come here for my certificate.
I need a birth certificate to make my voter identity card, to register myself
in the State's social security schemes and school admission," said
Muhammad Aslam, a street boy, receiving a birth certificate. Summer shelters for Press Trust of www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200706180307.htm [accessed 25 May 2011] Sleeping children on footpaths or
on road dividers in Aiding the addicted June 04, 2007 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] Support NGO works for
the betterment of street children who have fallen prey to narcotics. After spending twenty years with Support-
NGO, Managing Director, Sujata Ganega has written a book on the
rehabilitation of street children. “The book — ‘FLUTE’ is
totally based on my experience through life,” said Sujata. Talking about the
main cause, Sujata said, “The drug addiction habit is spreading because the
bad company. Man arrested for molesting street children in Andhra city Reuters, gulfnews.com/news/world/india/man-arrested-for-molesting-street-children-in-andhra-city-1.180155 [accessed 25 May 2011] Police in southern Madhur Tankha, The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2007/05/18/stories/2007051814440400.htm [accessed 25 May 2011] By all accounts the Capital's
street children are vulnerable to all forms of exploitation and abuse. And
their daily lives are likely to be far removed from the childhood envisaged
in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As a result, these children suffer from
sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse and crime resulting in a deep sense
of insecurity and emotional conflict. Life's lessons learnt on the sidewalk Nikhil Hemrajani, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 25 May 2011] At the helm of Hamara Footpath is
its founder, 24-year-old Shubhangi Swarup. "It is an open community
effort where people from all walks of life are encouraged to step in and
engage themselves with the street kids in any manner that is helpful,"
she says. Thrice a week, from 7.30 pm to 9 pm, volunteers assemble on the
footpath facing a jewellery showroom and interact with the kids. The sidewalk classes see about 25
kids with five to 10 volunteers, picnics attract over 50 children, including
a few of their street-dwelling parents. Money for such outings is raised by
volunteers from peers by way of e-mails and oral communication. But it does
not end there. Nearby chemists, general practitioners and shopkeepers also
offer a helping hand by sponsoring medicines or performing medical check-ups. Today, with more than 18 million
kids on the street, India has the highest concentration of street children in
the world. And the number is growing. Many of these children die young for
want of simple care. Many of those who survive are consumed by the city’s
underbelly. Human Rights Watch - Street Children Human Rights Watch At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] In Street kids fight another odd: AIDS cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=235423 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [Last access date unavailable] They clean your car while you wait
at the traffic signal, serve you tea at roadside stalls or just loiter around
begging. And a number of them are carriers of the dreaded HIV or may be
actually suffering from AIDS. Deprived of childhood, education
and a good future, a large number of street children in West Bengal,
especially in Kolkata, have fallen prey to the dreaded disease through
regular sexual exploitation and addiction to injectible drugs. “Street children are victims of
various kinds of perversions, like sodomy, rape, and other paedophilic
activities. Many are also drug addicts. Girls are more vulnerable,” said
Subhasish Guha, associate professor, School of Tropical Medicine. “They are
so marginalised that their infections do not come to light, nor do they get
medical attention in time. We are providing free anti-retroviral therapy, yet
hardly any street children come to us,” he added. When the school comes calling to these street children Azera Rahman, Indo-Asian News Service IANS, [accessed 25 May 2011] Her hair unkempt and dressed in
rags, seven-year-old Rani holds a stack of newspapers under her arm at a busy
traffic intersection in the city waiting for a car to halt. Just then a van
wheels by making her squeal in delight. A host of other kids join her and
they run towards it chanting 'Didi'(elder sister). As three teachers step out of it, the kids
gather around it in excitement. The Tamasha Roadshow Van, a mobile school
initiative, is a sliver of hope for kids like Rani from the drudgery of their
daily grind at the various traffic signals of the city where they sell
newspapers, flowers and other odds and ends. Filled with colourful storybooks
and having computers fitted in them, these vans are a storehouse of
excitement for the kids. Besides telling stories, colourful pictures,
puppets, cards and marbles are also used to teach them in a fun-filled
manner. The sessions last for two to three hours a day. That's not all. Various workshops on candle
making, card making and painting are also conducted so that the children can
learn new skills and can use them to earn a better living. 'The parents are
also convinced this will help their kids enhance skills to earn more that
hence encourages them to come to us every day,' she said. Govt, UNICEF plan education on wheels for slum, street kids Tenzing Lamsang, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=234441 [accessed 25 May 2011] initially, two buses provided by the Delhi
State Industrial Development Corporation will be redesigned, officials said.
The bus, which will be designed so that it can reach crowded slums, will
cover four areas a day. The bus, on reaching a particular area, will ring an
alarm signalling its arrival. Focus
will be on school drop-outs and children who have never gone to school. The
bus will also be instrumental in spreading awareness on malaria, dengue and
environment, officials added. For these children, labour is survival Harshad Pandharipande, Times News Network (The Times of articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-05-01/nagpur/27886772_1_railway-station-boys-ravi [accessed 25 May 2011] Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, [accessed 25 May 2011] Although not all the children
would be covered the government intends to bring street children in central The government will also allocate funds
for construction of the "child shelter homes" having facilities for
education and games for children. Explaining the idea behind these homes, a
senior ministry official said, children would be welcome in these homes
around the clock but no one would be forced to come here. The homes would be
run by the NGOs with the help of WCD department of the Delhi government. NGO lights up future of streetkids Ruchi Sharma , Indian News Channel CNN-IBN News, ibnlive.in.com/news/ngo-lights-up-future-of-streetkids/39208-3.html [accessed 25 May 2011] Many children like Sagar, who sell
flowers or simply beg at traffic points, are today getting an
window to education thanks to an initiative called 'Steps for Change'. An
NGO, run by a group of youths, has begun this initiative to help street
children get basic education. The NGO
educates 80 children in five makeshift centres in Delhi. They teach the
children counting, Hindi, English and basic hygiene. The initiative may or may not have
changed much in the lives of these children today. But what seems to be
changing for sure is the future of these children and it surely looks much
brighter. But the volunteers of Steps
for Change admit that it's difficult to keep the kids like Sagar hooked to
books. "Initially, it was really
very difficult to get these kids to come to classes, because first of all, it
was a very big thing to connect with them so that they listen to you in the
first place," says Pawan, a founder member of the NGO. Street kids get a park of their own Sumati Yengkhom, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 25 May 2011] An adventure park exclusively for
the underprivileged children has come up in the city. Tucked away on the
southern fringes, Monobitan will open its gates on Thursday. An initiative of Child In Need Institute
(CINI), the fiveacre park near Thakurpurkur has different play areas for
children of different ages. While Badhan Hara, a lush green play area for
children upto six years has a merry-goround, sea-saw and swings, Bana Mallika
caters to bigger children. It has facilities like multi-climbing structure,
cycling trek, roller skating pitches and tunnels where the children can play
hide and seek. "While working with more than 50,000 street children in
Kolkata I realised that they were living in a concrete jungle with no open
space to play. The underprivileged children do not have access to the
numerous parks in the city. That is how the idea was conceived," said
CINI director Samir Chaudhuri. Street Children in Phulwari Area Admitted in School www.patnadaily.com/news2007/apr/041207/children_admitted_in_school.html This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 May 2011] Phulwarisharif police station
in-charge Shabbir Ahmed, on Thursday, accompanied by other police officials,
visited several areas and picked up 76 young boys and girls wandering
aimlessly on the streets and had them admitted in a government school in an
attempt to rehabilitate them. Ahmed promised the kids to reward
them if they did well in their studies while assuring the parents that the
children will be provided with free lunch and free books as long as they
stayed in the school. Why summer means spring for these street children The Indian Express News Service, Ahmedabad, April 8, 2007 cities.expressindia.com/local-news/fullstory.php?newsid=230746 [accessed 25 May 2011] Runaway guides Paromita Pain, The Hindu Business Line, Apr 06, 2007 www.thehindubusinessline.in/life/2007/04/06/stories/2007040600050100.htm [accessed 25 May 2011] WINDOW TO THEIR WORLD - Shekhar Saini and Javed Khan,
trust members and designated guides, love their newfound roles. They share
their stories with generous doses of candour and humour as they point out the
various spots at the station where children get on with their lives. Saini,
21, ran away from home when he was 12. He hung around the Delhi station for a
year and then went to the Trust. Today, he has just finished high school and
wants to be an actor. He greets the waiting group with infectious enthusiasm
and warm confidence, speaking clearly and fast in English while cutting quite
a dashing figure in well-fitting jeans and cool accessories. He puts the walk
in perspective — "This isn't just about raising awareness about street
kids but also showing how much they can achieve if given the right
opportunities." 50,000 street kids to get birth certificates cities.expressindia.com/local-news/fullstory.php?newsid=228654 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [Last access date unavailable] As many as 50,000 of the city’s
underprivileged children under the age of 18 years would soon get Indian
citizenship. These are children living
on streets, those living below poverty line, and sex workers’ children. CLPOA’s Bhattacharya said the
survey was conducted last year under the guidance of UNICEF. “We decided to
give citizenship status to all deprived children born in Kolkata,” he said.
“Once they have the birth certificates, these children will be able to get
ration cards and other legal documents.” Interpreter of dreams Tanvi Sirari, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/local-news/fullstory.php?newsid=228237 [accessed 26 May 2011] How to change the world - The role of the social entrepreneur Nikhil Mustaffa, The Daily Mirror, March 15, 2007 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 September 2011] As Childline expanded to new
cities, the call-tracking system also emerged as an important source of child
protection information. National data showed that the biggest killer of
street children was tuberculosis, but regional call patterns revealed a
variety of local problems. In Jaipur, for example, childline received reports
of abuse in the garment and jewelry industries. In Varanasi, there were
reports of children being abducted to work in the sari industry. In Delhi,
many calls came from middle-class children. In Nagpur, a transit hub, there
were frequent reports of children abandoned in train stations. In Goa, a
beach resort, a major problem was the sexual abuse of children by foreign
tourists. Street kids make it to classrooms and how Mihika Basu, The Indian Express News Service, Mumbai,
March 11, 2007 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=226060 [accessed 26 May 2011] Three-years back all that Sheetal Jagdish
Jadhav did was to look after her siblings and roam the streets. Two-year’s
ago, Kanaka Valli and her parents used to sell flowers at street signals. And
both could never dream of making it to a mainstream school. Blossoms in the dust M.G., The Hindu, Mar 04, 2007 www.hindu.com/mag/2007/03/04/stories/2007030400200400.htm [accessed 26 May 2011] In the bleak barracks behind the
Vijay Ghat, on the Yamuna Pushta, are growing up small blossoms in the dust.
A group of street children have found a home here, in a shelter run by the
Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA). AAA volunteers had come across
many vulnerable street children and their big concern was how to keep these
kids away from drugs, petty crime and exploitation and make them believe that
another life was possible. The organisation felt that
education was the key. However, no school was willing to admit children from
the streets. In many cases their date of birth, father's name and
identification were not known and these were major hurdles to admission. Slum kids fear rehabilitation The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=224397 [accessed 26 May 2011] During the group discussion
sessions, children from state shelter homes said the problem of
rehabilitation always haunts them. They also said the homes lack proper
health facilities. Those children who came from slums complained about the
poor health and educational facilities, while those living on the stations
said stations witness a lot of criminal activities of which they are forced
to be a part. VOICE children enact street-to-home journey The Indian Express News Service, Mumbai, February 25, 2007 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=224019 [accessed 26 May 2011] Sixteen-year-old Kirti Katarmale
started selling lemons at road signals when she was two years old. Now she is
preparing for the National Open School board exams and wants to become a
teacher. Fourteen-year-old Radha Shiva
Goud has lived outside stations throughout her life, but now has a roof over
her head and attends regular classes of English, Hindi and mathematics,
besides yoga and karate. Like Radha and Kirti, 25 girl
street children have a place they call “home”, four-square meals a day and
proper education all thanks to Sanjivani, a residential home for street
children started in August 2006. Mumbai
has over 2,50,000 street children. From street child to surgeon, Indian girl follows dream Reuters, Jaipur, 19 February 2007 [accessed 26 May 2011] Chand’s mother was a prostitute
with 16 children living in Japiur’s red light area, and the girl — her family
name has been withheld to protect her — was already a child prostitute when
she ran away to eke an existence on the streets aged six. Even for Chand, there is the
constant threat of her past dragging her back to wreck her future. “If I saw my family again they
would want me back to become a prostitute again to earn money,” she said
simply. The Indian Express News Service, Vadodara, February 19,
2007 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=222972 [accessed 26 May 2011] Western Railway authorities are
helping to put street kids on the right track. A few months ago, a classroom for
non-formal education being run for street children by the Vikas Jyot Trust
(VJT), at the Vadodara railway station, was levelled during construction of
platform number 6. Following this, the local women's welfare committee,
comprising of female railway employees and wives of railway employees,
approached the railway authorities and asked them to provide an alternate
place for developing a new NFE classroom. Railway authorities agreed to give
a stretch of land at Jetalpur Road, in the close vicinity of the railway
station. Vocational training centre for 900 street kids in Maloya The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=221886 [accessed 26 May 2011] Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) is
going to construct a vocational training centre for 900 street children at
Maloya. While the work on the Rs 9 crore project will start in March, the
tenders would be floated next week.
According to the CHB officials, the proposed project would include a
hostel for the street children, besides a vocational training centre, where
they would be provided training to enable them to become self-dependent. The project would help in the
upliftment of 900 street children, who after their selection, would stay in
the hostel and get the required training to make both ends meet. Civic body offers lifeline for street children Thiruvananthapuram, The Hindu, Feb 02, 2007 www.hindu.com/2007/02/02/stories/2007020222800300.htm [accessed 26 May 2011] Robbed of childhood and adult
protection, hundreds of street children and juvenile migrant labourers in the
city are compelled to negotiate a precarious existence in a dark world of
crime, misery and exploitation. The City Corporation is now holding out a
lifeline for these vulnerable children. While a majority of the children
have severed ties with their family, a good number of them live with their
family either in the streets of the city or in the suburbs. The CDP points
out that these children are not deviant or delinquent; in fact they are
intrinsically more gifted than the mainstream ones. The Corporation is planning to
establish three new rehabilitation centres in different regions of the city.
The existing rehabilitation centres and juvenile homes would be upgraded with
improved facilities. It is also proposed to open four bridge schools to impart
education to the working children. 10 rescued street children leave for home States The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2007/02/01/stories/2007020120140300.htm [accessed 26 May 2011] Ten children rescued from the
streets in Kerala started the journey back to their home States, with the
help of Don Bosco Sneha Bhavan, from here on Wednesday. During the past month, the
children had been under the care of the Sneha Bhavan, which had been working
in association with the city Corporation for 32 years for the welfare of
children left on the streets under various circumstances. A rehabilitation programme for
them is being implemented with the cooperation of the Don Bosco network in
the country. Journeying into dark lives of Nayanima Basu, Indo-Asian News Service IANS, [accessed 26 May 2011] These poor kids flee their homes
for a better life in the huge metros and get gobbled up in the narrow
by-lanes, or stinking sewers of the railway stations or bus-stops which are,
according to one estimate, home to some 3,000-odd poor young runaways. They trade leftover drinking water bottles
to watch the new movie that comes in the nearby Sheila movie theatre on
Fridays. One uncrushed bottle fetches them up to Rs.2, whereas a crushed
bottle brings a paltry 50 paise.
Sometimes they also pick up leftover fruits from trains and sell them
to the juice-sellers in the platform and earn money. The children, according to Saini,
often fall prey to gang leaders who sometimes sexually assault them or get
them into drug addiction. If by chance they escape from the clutches of gang
leaders, they are not spared by the railway police who beat them without any
reason. NGOs’ solution to missing saga: Database of slum kids Tarannum Manjul, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=217629 [accessed 26 May 2011] With the number of missing
children increasing in the state, NGOs working for the under-privileged
children different districts are now trying to keep a database of
street-children and those living in slums. The database will include all
details about these children, and in case any child goes missing the NGOs
plan to help the police with the same. Noida — The mirror of Indian society At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [Last access date unavailable] THE LITTLE PREYS - The weakest of Braving every day [PDF] Harsh Mander, Aman Biradari, January 8, 2007 www.amanbiradari.org/Braving_Every_Day.pdf [accessed 23 September 2011] Like many children who flee their
families to escape intolerable abuse, Ratul is unwilling to talk about
precisely what drove him from his home. But one night at the age of seven, he
walked away decisively from his truck-driving father, mother and two younger
brothers, never to return. It was an act of incredible courage for a child so
young, echoed and repeated in the lives of tens of thousands of street
children who decide at very young ages to bravely escape violence and abuse
in their homes — alcoholic fathers, physical and sexual violence — by fending
for themselves, at whatever cost. Mumbai’s street fighters Deepa Gahlot, Daily News & Analysis DNA, Mumbai, Jan
9, 2007 www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_mumbais-street-fighters_1073474 [accessed 26 May 2011] “It’s almost impossible to get an
accurate census as they are a floating population,” says Dr Madhav Chavan,
one of the founders and programme directors of Pratham, an NGO that provides
primary education to these children in Mumbai. “Once they get a taste of
freedom, living like adults and surviving successfully on the mean streets,
they prefer not to return to a disciplined lifestyle.” Five years ago, the average of children who
ran away from home in states such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh used to be
eight years old. Today that average has dropped to six. Poor kids appeal to Prez to ensure safety Press Trust of [accessed 26 May 2011] Demonstrating against the killings
in front of the Indian Social Institute here, Secretary of the organisation
Subhash Kumar said, "we condemn the ghastly killings and hereby make an
appeal to the honourable President that he take a
close look into the matter and ensure the safety of all homeless street
children and all those still involved in child labour." Uwe Buse, Spiegel OnLine International, www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,454601,00.html [accessed 26 May 2011] Children living on the streets of Nearly P.Vijian, Malaysian National News Agency Bernama.com, This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 26 May 2011] The temperature continues to drop
in this capital city but these two children continue to defy nature's harsh
climate to earn some paisa to feed themselves in the
gripping winter. Similarly, an estimated 400,000
street children in the city hog the streets daily to eke out a painful living
in the bustling capital -- resisting all kinds of harassment, from changing
climate to child abusers. Undernourished and thinly dressed,
many homeless street children appear to be the most vulnerable people during
winter, especially this time around where the weatherman expects temperature
to dip below 10 degrees Celsius during most nights in the coming months. Many of them escape grinding
poverty at home, broken families or abusive parents, and bravely venture into
the city to feed themselves, despite the extreme cold conditions or scorching
heat in summer, which arrives just after winter in the month of May. Tapping the talent on city streets At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [Last access date unavailable] In a bid to bringing these
children into the mainstream society, Humanity Association is going to
organise a children’s theatre festival in February next year. More kids flee abuse than poverty Express News Service, Ahmedabad, November 20, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=210145 [accessed 24 May 2011] Contrary to popular myth, more
children leave home due to a disturbed domestic environment than abject
poverty, according to a report from the Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG)
and the Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR). The study ranks familial harassment as the
top reason behind children running away from home. Education Made Me a Real Human Being Tehelka, Nov 25 , 2006 www.tehelka.com/story_main22.asp?filename=Ne112506Education_p24.asp [accessed 26 May 2011] Arriving in The Kerala difference R. Krishnakumar, Frontline, Volume 23 - Issue 22 :: Nov.
04-17, 2006 www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2322/stories/20061117003503000.htm [accessed 19 September 2011] Street children have been found to
spend their entire day's wages immediately on food, watching adult movies, or
buying drugs, alcohol and other addictive substances; they feel insecure
carrying money on them. These children are a challenge to those involved in
their rehabilitation, he said. Street kids have edifying visit to Empire Circus October 30, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 26 May 2011] Humaara Footpath is the brainchild
of Shubhangi Swarup, a 25-year-old Xavier’s graduate. At the age of 18, she
felt an urgent desire to educate street children and now has an informal
network of 16 friends helping her realise her dream. “I first started with the girls
who sell gajras at signals,” she said. “We get together at least three times
a week in the evenings in front of Tanishq at Churchgate, lay out chatais and
do whatever they want, whether it’s drawing, story-telling, singing or
English. The biggest need of the day is to create the desire to learn in
them. That is the biggest hurdle. So forcing them to bury their noses in
books is the last thing anyone should do.” Smile Please! Shinjini Singh, The Indian Express News Service, October
29, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=207132 [accessed 26 May 2011] In Sector 8 Vikas Nagar, house
number 212, "Gharaunda", is home to eighteen little boys who have
progressed from being homeless street kids on the railway station to being
students at the local Rani Laxmi Bai school. It has all happened under the
loving care of Shachi Singh and her NGO Ehsaas. Mermier Bal Ashram: a ray of hope for street children Preeti Gupta, Navi Mumbai News, October 6, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 26 May 2011] Young children doing odd jobs like
polishing shoes, picking rags, working at small eateries, begging at the
traffic signals etc., are a common sight in our city. Most of these kids have
fled from their home for various reasons and live on streets. The hunger
pangs lead these kids towards these weird jobs or begging, The sad state of these kids
smashes our claims of being a modern and progressive city. However, all hope
is not yet lost. Non-governmental organizations like Jan Vikas Society (JVS)
are trying to create a better world, fit for all children irrespective of
caste, colour, creed and sex. 40 per cent of workers on building sites are children Chitra V. Ramani, The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2006/10/07/stories/2006100706550400.htm [accessed 26 May 2011] "I do not work every day. I
only work on days when my mother is ill," said Hema (names of the
children have been changed to protect identities), a nine-year-old
construction worker. "I ran away from home because
my father used to beat me every day," said Mukesh, a 12-year-old who
cleans the floor of train compartments to earn some money. Hema and Mukesh are two of a kind,
both working when they should be studying and playing like other children. Southern News - Andhra Pradesh, This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 26 May 2011] Each child has a tale to tell. For
instance, Mokkulu Rajendra Kumar (12) lost his parents in a road accident at
Gudiwada four months back. Since then, he has been eking out a livelihood
here by collecting waste paper. Childline to help children in distress in India www.theindiancatholic.com/report.asp?nid=3620 [Last access date unavailable] For instance, close to 150,000
street children live in Homeless No More www.mumbaimirror.com/nmirror/mmpaper.asp?sectid=2&articleid=927200605934484927200605543859&pubyear= 2006&pubday=27&pubmth=9 [Last access date unavailable] "Today we have 20 children,
seven of them girls, all aged between four to 14; abandoned in slums and
railway stations around the area. Parents of some of the children cannot
afford to look after them," says John. The couple has promised to look
after the children for 18 years. Their parents and grand parents are granted
visiting rights. No room for child labour Paromita Pain & Shalini Umachandran, The Hindu
Business Line, Sep 08, 2006 www.thehindubusinessline.in/life/2006/09/08/stories/2006090800030100.htm [accessed 26 May 2011] From October 1, no home or hotel
can employ children below 14 years. But can a mere ban resolve the complex
socio-economics issues involved? Bhola (name changed) left his
mother, siblings and their ramshackle hut in Himachal Pradesh and came down
to Chennai to work. He takes care of a partially paralysed senior citizen,
and his chores include wiping away the constant dribble from his mouth and
feeding mashed food with tremendous patience. Bhola, all of nine years, sits
quietly by the old man's wheelchair with a `wipe cloth' tied to his waist. From October 10, though, life
might change for Bhola and children like him when the Government's ban on
employment of children below 14 in homes, hotels, roadside eateries, resorts,
and spas comes into effect. Early in August, the Labour Ministry announced
that it was adding these jobs to the list of hazardous occupations in which
child labour is banned under the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation)
Act, 1986. NGO to teach more street children The Indian Express News Service, Mumbai, August 27, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=198566 [accessed 26 May 2011] Eleven-year-old Farida, a street
kid, wants to become a doctor. She would have perhaps never believed she
could realise her dream had it not been for Door Step School. Backward and forward linkages that strengthen primary
education Vimala Ramachandran, 17 August 2006 -- [This is an
overview of a collection of 10 case studies on backward and forward linkages
that strengthen primary education. This research (supported by DFID, At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 26 May 2011] IV CHILDREN, WORK AND EDUCATION - Primary education in There is, formally, a widespread
consensus about ending child labour and establishing compulsory universal
primary education for all children up to the age of 14, a commitment that can
be traced back to Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s efforts at the turn of the last
century. Yet, numerous commissions, reports, plans and experiments
notwithstanding, more than five decades after independence, the situation
remains dismal. Not only do many children never enter school, there are many
of those who do drop out before completing basic education. And scores of
children from the most deprived strata are or become part of the workforce. At Anuradha Mane, The Indian Express News Service, Pune,
August 17, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=197128 [accessed 27 May 2011] And it was only after a rigorous five-day training, squeezed between their daily
schedules of rag-picking or selling knick-knacks at traffic signals, that the
100 children were ready for the D-day. The heroes of Jamghat Madhu Gurung, The Hindu, Aug 13, 2006 www.hindu.com/mag/2006/08/13/stories/2006081300040400.htm [accessed 27 May 2011] SAME STORY, AGAIN AND AGAIN - He was 10 when he began living
on the streets of Rajasthan's homeless children find shelter www.streetchildren.org.uk/reports/Rajasthan%27s%20homeless%20children%20find%20shelter.mht [Last access date unavailable] JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT - The Juvenile Justice Act of
2000 states that all children must be given the right to food, shelter,
healthcare and education. So far, even a formal census on
the number of children living on the streets and are vulnerable to abuses has
not been conducted. In Rajasthan alone, an informal
organisation found that out of 1.5 million street children, not even one per
cent have been provided shelter. Vagrants & street children: they need a hand At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [Last access date unavailable] The privileged and the employed
have, more often than not, regarded vagrants with suspicion and contempt
apart from the usual dismissive sneer. Little are they aware of the creative
fire that lies in them. The “Bhabaghure O Pathashishu Mela — 2006” aims at
exploring that creative streak in vagrants and street children. Unique talent hunt for street kids Bindu Shajan Perappadan, The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2006/07/30/stories/2006073006790300.htm [accessed 27 May 2011] It's a search for the Capital's
very own "Chhupey Rustum''. Looking for the star of tomorrow, this unique
talent hunt exclusively for street and working children under 18 is all set
to take off this coming month. It will comb through every nook and corner of
the city scouting for the very best talent in performing arts. The boy racer Amelia Gentleman, Observer Sport Monthly, 30 July 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/jul/30/features.sport9 [accessed 12 February 2011] There is something disturbing
about Budhia's odd touring lifestyle, with the constant pressure on him to
run, dress up and perform for the media. But there is something just as bleak
about the slum life into which he was born. A few hundred yards from the
hostel, dozens of street children Budhia's age are struggling to survive in
the slums by old Delhi railway station. They can be seen in the streets
nearby, addicted to industrial solvents, fighting among themselves as they
scavenge for food. This is the life that Budhia could have had and has left
behind, at least for now. SNEHA Chalks Out Scientific Plans To Tackle Malnutrition Jayata Sharma, The Indian Express Healthcare Management,
July 2006 www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200607/initiative01.shtml [accessed 27 May 2011] ITS Monsoon of points in Kolkata Nick Hyde, Quins Community Development, Kolkata At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] The second game of the season was
the opening game in the 'cup', with Future Hope Harlequins facing their old
adversaries, the Kolkata Police. Things have changed in Kolkata; street
children were regularly pursued by policemen, but Future Hope and rugby has
started to change the perception of street children within the Kolkata
Police. Now best of friends, Future Hope boys have coached and officiated for
the police and were integral to the smooth running of the Kolkata Police 10s
played last month. 'Street India Movement' to help street children in Kerala Bureau Report, www.zeenews.com/news307350.html [accessed 23 September 2011] With the objective of wiping out
child labour and begging by children and to create an Street children join celebration The Hindu, Tamil Nadu - Chennai, Jun 26, 2006 www.hindu.com/2006/06/26/stories/2006062615780500.htm [accessed 27 May 2011] More than 500 street and working
children gathered at the St. Anthony's The non-governmental organisation
has been enabling out of school children to enter mainstream schools with
counselling and material assistance from year 2000. The keepers of the flame moneycontrol.com, 2006-06-23 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Social workers are faith workers of
a different kind. They aim to right the accident of birth - like
helping slum children not having access to education or clean drinking
water. Seen ragpickers rummaging through dustbins for their food?
Well, this is reality at its worst for some children, almost the minute
their born but there is hope, because some noble people keep
them going. What these street children dream of? Education The Indian Express News Service, Ahmedabad, June 11, 2006 cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=187348 [accessed 27 May 2011] These street children live in
areas surrounding the Kalupur Railway Station like the Tejas Mehta, Mumbai, June 5, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] A large number of street kids in
Mumbai are heavily into dope, by chasing, snorting, smoking and injecting.
Many of these children stay doped through the day to hide from the daily run
of the city. They have been addicts for years, and some started as early as
at the age of eight. Parul Gupta, Agence France-Presse AFP, May 11, 2006 www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\05\11\story_11-5-2006_pg4_23 [accessed 27 May 2011] Javed Khan left his village home
at the age of nine to see monuments in the Indian capital During that time, Khan lived in an
empty sewer, went without food for five days, was stabbed, reported to a gang
leader of street children and saw his friends lose their lives to alcohol and
drug addiction. Slum tours: a day trip too far? Amelia Gentleman, The Observer, 7 May 2006 www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/may/07/delhi.india.ethicalliving [accessed 27 May 2011] He pauses to give the group of
visitors from These children finally have an identity to flash Tarannum Manjul, The Indian Express News Service, cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=180918 [accessed 27 May 2011] Seven-year-old Munnu is no longer
just another face in the crowd of street children. He finally has an identity
which he carries with pride. Munnu,
like nearly 2,000 other destitute children of the city, are now identified as
the ‘Street and Working Children’, and also, ‘Children in Difficult
Circumstances’. TV star reunites runaway & family Reena Thapar Kapoor and Santosh Andhale, May 25, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Rafiq said that he ran away from
home because he was fed up of the constant shouting and nagging of his step
mother and grandmother. "Nani beat me up ruthlessly because I was weak
in studies so I left home and headed towards the railway station. Once there,
I did not know what to do so I boarded the first train that came on the
platform," disclosed Rafiq. Though he does not remember which
train it was, he said he realised he had reached Mumbai as the sign board
read Mumbai Central and he was told that the train would not go beyond that. Without any relative or friend in
Mumbai, Rafiq started begging on the trains for the first two months and
slept on various railway stations. Street children savour care Rajib Chatterjee, The Statesman, Kolkata, April 30, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Where have all the street children gone? They have gone to schools, thanks to Love and Care Foundation, a social service organisation formed by the residents of Tarakeswar, Singur and Haripal. About 120 street children from
Tarakeswar, Singur and Haripal go to three schools formed by the organisation
at three villages in Tarakeswar. Apart from offering the usual lessons, the
organisation also tries to develop moral and ethical values among the
students. The schools also provide
vocational training to the children. Many of the students have gone to
secondary schools after passing out from primary school. Begging menace on the increase The Hindu, Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 29, 2006 hindu.com/2006/04/29/stories/2006042921390300.htm [accessed 27 May 2011] Street children, who form a
sizable segment of alms-seekers in city, are vulnerable to wanton cruelty,
sexual exploitation and drug abuse. A majority of the street children are
hooked to chemical solvents such as petrol, liquid shoe-polish and adhesives
that contain addictive substances. Inhalation of petrol fumes is a
common addiction seen among the street children. The street children procure
shoe-polish, thinner and adhesives which contain turpentine from shops and
inhale them to get a high. A dream come true for street kids Bindu Shajan Perappadan, The Hindu, www.hindu.com/2006/04/26/stories/2006042604040200.htm [accessed 27 May 2011] It was like a dream come true for
52 street children and working children from Street children now direct traffic as policemen AsiaNews/UCAN, At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Former street children now direct
traffic on the busy roads of INDIA-AIDS: Street Children Are
Most Vulnerable Bijoy Basant Patro, InterPress News Service IPS, NEW www.aegis.com/news/ips/1997/IP970902.html [accessed 27 May 2011] Uma (not her real name) was nine
years old when she was first raped by a gang of homeless boys at the Information about Street Children - This report is taken from “A Civil Society Forum for South
Asia on Promoting and Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 12- 14
December 2001, At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Police Abuse And Killings Of Street Children In Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project, November
1996 www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India4.htm [accessed 24 May 2011] Street Kids Street Kids India Expedition SK'i.e -- funded by Singapore
International Foundation SIF At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 27 May 2011] Kolkata is the capital city of the
state of Sexual Health in Slum & Street
children India, Research & Intervention Streetkids-Sexual and Reproductive Health SRH www.streetkids-srh.org/project.php [accessed 27 May 2011] Since 2001 an extensive research
& prevention / intervention program on sexual health and teenage slum
& street children in Street
Children Of Nigam S., PMID: 12289892 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12289892?dopt=Abstract [accessed 28 May 2011] 90% of street children are working
children with regular family ties who live with their families, but are on
the streets due to poverty and their parents' unemployment. The remaining 10%
are either working children with few family ties who view the streets as
their homes or abandoned and neglected children with no family tie CDB is the first bank initiated and run by street &
working children [DOC] The Children's Development Bank CDB At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 September 2011] The Children’s Development Bank’s (CDB)
400 account holders -- mostly "rag pickers" and street-children --
own and run the bank from its headquarters at a night shelter for homeless
children. Many of the children, some as young as 10 and 11, sell newspapers,
boxes of tissues and other wares at traffic intersections. Some work on daily
wages. Others collect waste and then sell it for recycling. BBC News, 27 August, 2001 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1502820.stm [accessed 28 May 2011] His idea was simple. He installed
a computer on the wall of his south Railway cops' bid to reform street
children Neil Pate, Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 19 September 2011] Touched by the plight of city
urchins, many of whom are forced to live on railway platforms, the Government
Railway Police (GRP) have started holding evening classes in hygiene and
primary education for the children.
Marathi and Hindi primary school texts form the basis of this
extraordinary platform. A majority of
the urchins have fled their homes to escape ill treatment and poverty. Most of them make a living as rag pickers,
shoeshine boys or hawkers. The most
disturbing problem, however, is that nearly 90 per cent of them are addicted
to inhaling toxic vapors of chemicals such as thinners and whiteners. Oxfam in India - The street
children of Mysore Oxfam www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/kidsweb/world/india/indioxf2.htm [accessed 28 May 2011] Some children in 25/09/2003 - Summer team big hit with Welshpool Baptist Church WBC At one time this article had been archived and may possibly
still be accessible [here] [accessed 28 May 2011] “We taught at the Street Children Of At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 September 2011] An estimated 35,000 street
children live in Street kids find joy with Miss
India Times News Network (The Times of [accessed 28 May 2011] Ms Vashi said that she was glad to
be associated with Project Mainstream which takes care of 19,000 street children,
providing meals and vocational training for them. A business analyst herself,
Ms Vashi said that Project Mainstream’s effort to improve the lot of these
children and make them independent was particularly impressive. On the streets where they live [PDF] www.infochangeindia.org infochangeindia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=725 [accessed 24 May 2011] Why Become a Rag-Picker or Street Child? Street Children Ministry www.abfindia.net/ragpickers.html [accessed 24 August 2011] THE
RAGPICKER'S DAILY ROUTINE - As a street child, between five
and eighteen years of age, these children earn their livelihood by polishing
shoes, washing cars, finding parking spaces, rag picking (recycling garbage),
selling lottery tickets and news papers, etc. They also work as coolies and
helpers in automobile repair shops, construction sites, and hotels. Their
average earnings vary between 15 Rupees to 20 per day, while the more
experienced ones earn 25 to 40 Rupees. However, these are the lucky ones. The
Girls are forced into prostitution at an early age. Arising at
dawn, the rag picker children start their rounds. With feet bare and backs
aching, they carry the heavy gunny bags that contain the day's pickings. Sometimes
on foot they travel over 20 kilometers each day for the best pickings. Their
clothing is filthy, tattered, ill fitting, and wholly inadequate for
protection especially, when the weather is wet and cold. Life is
very hard as they rummage (competing and fighting with stray dogs and cattle)
through every filthy garbage heap in the city and railway stations. All
recyclable garbage is collected and sorted: paper, plastic, bottles, bones,
metals and rotting discarded food thrown out by households and railway
passengers. With this they fill their bags and often their starving bellies.
If the day's collection is bad, they resort to stealing for survival. If
good, they rush to the nearest wayside shop to ease their hunger. All have
regular scrap dealers to buy their loot. They receive a meager pittance, and
sometimes this pittance is withheld to repay a previous enforced loan. Some
days they starve. If a better price is negotiated by another dealer, the
child is frequently beaten and tied up. However
the issue of greater concern is related to their pattern of spending, where a
major part of their income is spent on drugs, alcohol, solvent abuse
(sniffing solvents), and gambling. They frequently become involved in street
fights. With little money and too much freedom, they are vulnerable and fall
prey to any number of situations that threaten life and soul. Late in
the afternoon they resume their second round of collection. Then after
sorting and selling their loot, they spend their nights on the streets or in
graveyards, where they are exploited and abused. Older rag pickers and
perverted people give them drugs or threaten them for sexual purposes, thus
exposing them to A.I.D.S, and many more sexual and life threatening diseases. A rag
picker is not a beggar. He works hard and considers rag picking a profession
of choice. It enables him to earn money, daily, and offers him ample amounts
of free time. They are very loyal and protective of each other, sharing food
and money. The rag picker is proud and feels that he is master of his own
life. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Street Children - |
Human Trafficking in [India] [other countries]Street Children in [India Child Prostitution in [India] [other countries]