Plight of street children

Letter February 28, 2015
Free, easy and direct access to education, along with safe lodging on school premises for those who are in need of it

KARACHI: Who are street children? This question is simple to answer in the context of Pakistan, a country where 50 per cent of the population is under the age of 16 and millions of children are out of school. There is a simple definition of street children: “A street child is a homeless child, especially one forsaken or orphaned; he or she is known to steal in order to survive.” According to Unicef, “Street children have been a distinct social underclass which have been neglected by the world for a rather long period of time”.

According to an estimate, a total of 1.2 million to 15 million children in Pakistan are street children, with more than 0.2 million on the streets of Karachi. However, this figure is not authentic because since 1998, there has been no census in Pakistan. No one has collected any primary data in this regard. But why do children end up on the streets? There are many reasons for this. Children come on the streets after disputes in their homes, after natural disasters, internal disturbances, terrorism, family loss, poverty, psychological problems and the bad influence of other children. Most of the children who run away from home become street children. Such children end up in big cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad and Hyderabad. Travelling by train is an easy mode of travel for runaway children because there is no strict checking of tickets in the Pakistan railway system. In the early days, buses and trucks also found favour with runaway children, but as law-enforcement agencies started checking buses, bus drivers have stopped helping runaway children.

The problems faced by street children are very common and well known. Many of them have no guardian who can keep a check on them, and so they are exploited by people who use public spaces. They start using drugs in heavy quantities, begging, collecting garbage, selling narcotics, snatching valuables, stealing and developing skin diseases after sleeping on the streets without any proper cleanliness facilities.

Pakistan is a signatory to the UNCRC Child Rights Convention, Article 20 of which clearly defines the rights of street children: “A child who is temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to protection and assistance provided by the state.” Moreover, the Sindh Children Act 1955, Section 49 has prohibited the employment of children in drug trade, begging and other illegal and tedious acts, which may not be suitable for a child.

Additionally, the Sindh Orphanage Ordinance 1976 is for children who have no parental care. The Sindh Child Protection Authority Act 2011, passed in June 2011, makes it imperative upon the government to establish child protection authorities in the provincial jurisdiction and accommodate as many children as it may be possible. If these authorities are set up in a timely manner, many children will be saved from wasting themselves on the streets.

There is a very obvious and matter-of-fact solution to the problem of street children: education. Free, easy and direct access to education, along with safe lodging on school premises for those who are in need of it. This needs to be done so that our children are saved from the hostile environments of their homes, and the bad influences of other spoilt children.

Shafique Kandhro

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28th,  2015.

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