Human Trafficking in [India] [other countries]Street Children in [India Child Prostitution in [India] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children The Republic of
India [map] is the second
most populous country in the world, stretching from the Arabian Sea (W) to
the Bay of Bengal (E), bordering Pakistan (W); China, Nepal, and Bhutan (N);
Bangladesh (NE); and Myanmar (E). |
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accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in
Quick Search for Missing Children
- Select Gender, Country ( CHILDLINE - Toll Free Call 1098 - Night & Day 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. Delhi Govt. Started the toll free 'Youth Phone service’ 1-800-11-6888 The Government of Delhi running
the 'youth' helpline named Yuva Phone line in
Delhi. The counsellors are available round the
clock on toll free no 1800116888. The
helpline is specially for students. 24-hour
children's helpdesk at CMBT 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 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. Video Playlists for India [part 1] [part 2] - 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 - The Big Picture U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs [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) - 2004 [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. Giving
India's Kids Hope and a Future CHILDREN OF THE STREETS - They're seen just about
everywhere in India's largest cities: poor and homeless children living and
hanging out on the streets. Some
hustle enough rupees here and there to pay for an occasional plate of rice. An expanding economy is creating new wealth
and opportunities in India. But in
cities like Bangalore, thousands of young children and teens have yet to
benefit from the economic boom, according to Sajan
George, the head of The Global Council of Indian Christians. "We have about 800,000 orphans, street
children, children under bonded labor. This is a
large number of people in Bangalore City itself and they're being robbed of
their youth and childhood," George said. Lost,
runaway street children find their way back home via cyberspace 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 Uganda “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 At 11, both Haran
and Vicky Roy ran away from their homes in West Bengal, hoping to escape a
life of poverty and deprivation. But they landed on the streets of Delhi,
alone and vulnerable. Eleven years
later, both returned but as budding photographers, chronicling the life on
the streets on film. 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. 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 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 There are 7.6 million children who
are out of school in India to this day. This is a drop from the 32 million
out of schoolchildren in the country when Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) project started in 2001. 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. Delhi
street kid becomes professional photographer 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 Hundereds of street children in Kochi may
not know who their parents are, but consider Murugan,
the auto rickshaw-driver-turned social activist a dear friend. Murugan heads a
help group called 'Theruvora Pravarthaka
Association' which in Malayalam language means 'Street Workers' Association' Murugan, who grew up in an orphanage -- as his
mother could not afford to bring him up -- knows the pangs of
destitution. During the past six
years, he claims to have saved about 2000 street children from the
drudgery of forced labour. Four
SSC passouts were drug addicts 10 yrs ago 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. Punjab Governor
lays foundation stone of center for street children 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. Bombay's
innocent victims of destitution Eighty million people are
considered middle and upper class in India, but within the 1.1 billion population, one person out of three lives on less than one
dollar per day. At night, as the lights go out in downtown Bombay, thousands
of people begin to lie down in stations and on pavements to sleep. On rainy
nights, wherever shelter can be found, it is packed tight with huddled
bodies. In the morning, these people awake then quickly disappear into the
crowds of the streets. Some never wake up. 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 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. 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' 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. When brought face to face with
such children — an all-too-common occurrence virtually everywhere in India —
it becomes almost impossible to ignore them; to say no. A struggle invariably
begins inside my soul and no matter how many times the situation occurs, that
struggle never lessens and is never resolved. The truth of the matter is that
giving money to these children will not have any significant impact on their
lives beyond a few moments. It might even worsen their circumstances; many of
these children turn the money directly over to parents or other adults who
are either exploiting them or simply trying to stay a step above starvation. 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 Benefit Street Children (LEAD) 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 The Gujarat chapter of Childline recently arranged a state level children’s meet
where 40 under-privileged children interacted with government authorities and
brainstormed on issues like child labour,
education, health and child rights. About 15 children from Baroda and 25
children from Ahmedabad, all in the 12-18 age group, spoke to various representatives of the State
Government during the meet. 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’ 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 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 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 Delhi's street children soon Sleeping children on footpaths or
on road dividers in Delhi may soon be a thing of past as the Social Welfare
department plans to come out with some round-the-clock facilities. 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 Police in southern India arrested
a gay man for sodomising 30 young boys and killing
one - most of whom were poor street children, an officer said yesterday. Over a period of two years, construction
worker Gundu Shiva used to entice the boys with
chocolates and video games in the coastal city of Vijayawada
- 265 kilometres southeast of Hyderabad, capital of
Andhra Pradesh state. He would then sodomise them and force them to indulge in other sexual
acts like oral sex, said police, adding the children were often too scared to
tell anyone. Delhi's
street children vulnerable to exploitation 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 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 In Bulgaria, Guatemala, India, and Kenya, Human Rights Watch
has reported that police violence against street children is pervasive, and
impunity is the norm. The failure of law enforcement bodies to promptly and effectively
investigate and prosecute cases of abuse against street children allows the
violence to continue. Establishing police accountability is further hampered
by the fact that street children often have no recourse but to complain
directly to police about police abuses. The threat of police reprisals
against them serves as a serious deterrent to any child coming forward to
testify or make a complaint against an officer. Street kids
fight another odd: AIDS 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 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 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 Ravi sells bottled water at the
railway station and makes about Rs 200 a day. "But I have to give Rs 150 of that to cops and other bullies. I get to keep
the rest,"he says and adds there are younger
boys who also work at the station. They do anything from selling gutkha and cigarettes surreptitiously to polishing shoes
and scrubbing and sweeping the floor of the railway coaches. Ravi says most of them work voluntarily to support their
families. Or themselves, if they are runaways. Delhi’s
street children to get new home Although not all the children
would be covered the government intends to bring street children in central
Delhi under the ambit of the scheme, that provides
both financial and institutional protection to children. "There would be
child protection officers in each district to look and investigate into
complaints of violation of child rights," a ministry official said. 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 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 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 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 Krishna is one of the several
children who run away from their homes and take refuge at the Kalupur Railway Station. Fourteen-year-old Sultan, who
also collects bottles from various trains arriving at the railway station,
says, “I make Rs 100 to 150 by selling used bottles
in the market but this is only during summer. During the rest of the seasons,
I do not make much money.” Arif Lalbhai,
another destitute says that his favourite train is
the Okha-Puri Express, which he travels in almost
everyday, to get used bottles. He says, “I also sell water pouches to
passengers apart from selling bottles in the market. However, Summer is the
season in which the business becomes profitable for me as I can get more
bottles and sell more number of water pouches.” 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 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.” Roy was eleven when he ran away
from his home in Purulia, West Bengal, in 1999. “My
parents were strict and they did not want me to play with other kids. I
wanted to see the world. At home I felt caged.” So he made his escape one day and caught a
train to Delhi. He lived at the railway station for about six months, filling
up discarded mineral water bottles with tap water and selling them to
passengers. How to change the
world - The role of the social entreprenuer 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 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. 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. 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 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 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. Western Rly
pitches in to set street children on right track 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 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 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 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 India's street kids 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 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 THE LITTLE PREYS - The weakest of India’s citizens
are street children and all you need to do is stop and ask one of them who he
fears most in life. Without hesitation, he will tell you that it is the
police. In cities like Mumbai and Delhi street children are routinely robbed
of their meagre earnings by the police, little
girls learn to take rape for granted and everyone knows that any kind of
resistance will result in the sort of merciless beating that an NDTV reporter recently captured on his camera at New
Delhi railway station. 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. “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 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." India's
Street Kids Find New Lives as Tour Guides Children living on the streets of
Delhi, the Indian capital, are trying their luck as tour guides. By giving
Westerners a closer look at the life of street kids, they are also helping
themselves to escape from an existence of crime and poverty. Nearly Half A
Million Street Kids Shiver In Delhi Winter 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 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 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 Arriving in Delhi, Shahadat found work at a tea stall. He was, naturally,
more concerned about getting enough food every day than in receiving
equitable wages, but the tea-stall owner gave him neither enough food nor
wages. What he did get in ample daily doses was abuse. After working at the
tea shop for 15 days, he fled, retracing his steps to the place he had
arrived in the city at — the New Delhi Railway Station. There, in a sad
replay of Oliver Twist, he found his “saviour” in
the form of the leader of a gang of pickpockets and the “generous” man agreed
to take him on as a disciple. 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 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.” 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 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 "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. Guntur turns haven for street children 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 For instance, close to 150,000
street children live in New Delhi, of which 7 — 10 percent are runaways. More
than 2,500 of these children live in and around the New Delhi Railway
Station, where they scavenge for food in rubbish heaps and sleep between the
tracks. Runaway girls who show up at the train station tend to be picked up
by pimps within a day. All of the children are potential victims of drug
peddlers, child traffickers — and the harsh street life of New Delhi. The basic objective of the Childline service, which can be accessed by dialing 1098, is to respond to children in
emergency situations. "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. 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 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 IV CHILDREN, WORK AND EDUCATION - Primary education in India is
not compulsory; nor is child labour illegal. The
result is that a large proportion of our children between ages
six and 14 are not in school. They stay at home to care for younger siblings,
tend cattle, collect firewood, and work in the fields. They find employment
in cottage industries, tea-stalls, restaurants, or as domestics in middle
class homes. They become prostitutes or live as street children, begging or
picking rags and bottles from trash for resale. Many are bonded labourers, tending cattle and working as agricultural labourers for local landowners.’3 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 Sambhaji
Park, miles of smiles mark celebrations for street children 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. SAME STORY, AGAIN AND AGAIN - He was 10 when he began living
on the streets of Delhi. His friends have similar stories to tell of why they
ran away from home to the urban jungle where every day was spent in trying to
survive hunger, beating, illness, sexual abuse and fear. Rajasthan's homeless children find shelter1 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 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 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. |
