Being callous: Fighting parents cite poverty reasons to dump children

These six minor children left at Edhi Foundation shelter home because they were unwilling to raise them

KARACHI: "But Abbu said he won't come back to take me home," *Umer, the eldest of six siblings, sadly told everyone who asked him if he wanted to go home. After crying for many hours, he stopped and sought comfort in a yellow toy car at an unfamiliar place where he and his minor siblings would now begin their new life.

The six children were left behind at the Edhi Centre in Mithadar, as their parents were unwilling to raise them. The foundation's spokesperson Anwar Kazmi told The Express Tribune that the children's parents, Zubaida and Irshaad, did not want to live together anymore and were reluctant to raise them as they were poor. "The woman has gone to live with her parents and has refused to keep the children citing financial constraints. The man, on the other hand, said he could not raise them on his own," he said.

The only option left for them was to leave the children at the shelter home. On Monday, the children arrived at the centre in shabby clothes and starving. Umer, 7, cried the most as the parents bid them adieu - probably the only one who understood what was happening.

A day later, the children, properly fed, washed and dressed in warm clothes, played with plastic balls and toy cars at the TV lounge of their new home. The youngest of the lot, an eight-month-old girl cried for someone to pick her up as the others were too preoccupied with their new toys. Two of them quickly tired and went for a nap.

The children come from a family where the mother was frequently subjected to domestic violence and where the young ones had witnessed it with their eyes.

"My father used to beat my mother with a roller and scissors. She was bleeding," said *Sarah, 6. The fights remains etched in her memory. "Ammi locked the door from the outside and then went away," she continued.

The children, who lived with their parents in Quaidabad, said that they did not go to school.

Kazmi confirms the man's violent behaviour. "Irshaad was jobless and would not work in one place. He often subjected the wife to violence," said Kazmi.

They tried to sort the matter out and get police help but to no avail. Now, the woman does not want to live with him anymore.

Such cases are frequent at the Edhi Foundation, where after every two to three months, parents reportedly leave their children mainly due to domestic fights or poverty.

"Parents who leave their children are either too poor or the husband is a drug addict or if he remarries, the woman can't raise them. Sometimes they come to take them back but, more often than not, they continue to live here."

*Names changed to protect identities of minors

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2015.