Childhood addictions: Street children serving as drug mules

CPWB recovers 11 children, 4 of them were serving as ‘agents’ for local drug dealers.

FAISALABAD/SARGODHA:

The Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) has rescued 11 runaway children from various parts of Faisalabad and Sargodha during the last week. A social worker at the bureau said that four of the rescued children were being used as drug mules by local addicts and dealers in the area.

“They were all addicted to drugs, mostly hashish but one of them is already a heroin addict and he is only 11,” said Mona Qasim, adding “These children need rehabilitation and it will take time for them to detox before we contact their families.”

Several NGO workers said that many street children were employed by local drug dealers to traffic or transport drugs to customers.

“The children are never really searched by police so it makes the job of the dealer easy. One of the boys we recovered, Faizan, told us that he used to make an average of 6-7 deliveries a day,” said a health official at the DHQ rehabilitation facility Muazzam Khan. “He said that he sometimes got paid Rs50-100 a day but he usually received drugs as payment,” he added. “He told me he preferred to receive a couple of joints rather than cash. I was shocked because he is only eight,” he said.

CPWB workers said that they had rescued a total of 11 children in the past week, including Sohail, Zohaib, Ittefaq, Irfan, Faizan, Naveed, Usman, Abdur Rasheed, Arslan, Habib Ullah, Sohail, Zohaib and Rohail. “We are trying to make sure that this is an ongoing operation. We cannot monitor every area and recover every child on the streets but we are keeping at it and we are working towards creating awareness,” said CPWB official Rehmat Kamal.

Kamal said that the children were kept in the safe custody of the CPWB where 65 such children were already present and being given best training and educational facilities in addition to the provision of food and clothing. He added that the CPWB had traced out the family of 10 children during this period and handed most of them over to their legal heirs after completing legal formalities and producing the children before the competent court of law.

“Some of the children are in a drug rehabilitation programme with the consent of their parents but they are being strictly monitored,” he added.

The open reception centre of the bureau at the general bus stand also provides informal education and entertainment facilities for 26 children. “We are also hoping to introduce counselling and vocational training facilities at this centre for both parents and the children,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2012.