Rumours help NGO locate toddler after a month

NGO Roshni Helpline preparing database of missing children from camps.

KARACHI: Two-year-old Iqbal Jamali went missing on September 24 and his parents would have lost hope had NGO Roshni Helpline not helped them.

The Jamalis hail from the flood-affected area of Thul in Jacobabad. They took refuge in a relief camp in Mauripur, two months ago, when the floodwaters swept away all their possessions. But this loss was nothing compared to the trauma they went through in the past month when their only son, Iqbal, went missing from the camp.

When Iqbal went missing, his father, Sohbat Khan Jamali, was too afraid to file an FIR and it took much convincing on the part of the NGO to make him lodge a non-cognisable FIR, recalled Muhammad Ali, president of Roshni Helpline.

Roshni Helpline is a Sindh based non-profit and volunteer organisation working for the protection and rights of children, women, minorities and other vulnerable groups. It set up children- and women-friendly spaces at 500 Quarter’s IDPs Tent Village in Mauripur, and Keamari Town, Karachi, under their Psychosocial Support Programme for the flood-affected children and women, in collaboration with other organisations.

Their president told The Express Tribune that some unidentified men eventually dropped off Iqbal at a mosque in Musharraf Colony, after their volunteers spread the word that the culprits had been traced. “This was a tactic to create panic among the kidnappers and trick them into believing that they have been found,” said Ali, adding happily that “it worked”.

Sohbat Khan, who also has a six-year-old daughter, narrated that his son went missing while he was playing in the camp. The volunteers of Roshni Helpline then launched a systematic campaign, in which they contacted all mosques to make announcements, police stations, local administration and political representatives of Musharraf Colony, Hawke’s Bay and other nearby areas of Keamari Town.

Roshni Helpline also shared the missing boy’s information with other volunteer organisations in the city, he said, adding that they distributed posters and pamphlets carrying Iqbal’s description.

Now that they found Iqbal, Sohbat Khan is prepared to spend some more time in the city, even though others from his community have started returning. “The flood-water has not receded in our area,” he explained.

All is not lost for these survivors as Sohbat is earning up to Rs300 per day by working at a factory. With the government’s promises to give accommodation to the displaced, several people are reluctant to move back.

Purdah issues for women at camp

Referring to the conditions in relief camps, Sohbat Khan said that his main concern is the purdah of their women. He is very sceptical of the strangers visiting them. He pointed that it is very difficult for the law-enforcement agencies and NGOs to control crimes committed against the IDPs. “We have limited knowledge of the area and do not have photographs that can help identify victims,” he said.

According to Roshni Helpline, their volunteers visited relief camps in Karachi, Thatta, Dadu and Sukkur to observe issues faced by women and children, following the floods. Their visits to Sukkur and Thatta alone revealed that more than 26 children are missing. Out of them, 21 were boys aged between the ages of five and 16, and the remaining are girls, aged between 12 and 17 years.

Roshni Helpline managed to recover three children but 23 children are still missing. According to National Disaster Management Authority, around 400 children went missing during the flood emergency.

The NGO is also planning to collaborate with the city police to make a database of all the lost and kidnapped children in the east, west and south zones of Karachi, Ali added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2010.