MicroPakistan

This article was written a few years ago by Naveed Hasan Khan who works for Azad Foundation, an NGO that does works within Pakistan for Street Children from the street and off the street. It is an interesting read that tells us of yet another group of people in our society left to their own means of survival. Mr Khan does a good job by not only highlighting the crisis, but by also providing recommendations for the worsening situation at hand. Unfortunately, what most people don’t realise is that the ‘Street Children’ are also a part of our country’s future.

Condition of Human Rights in Pakistan with respect to Street Children by Naveed Hasan Khan

Children who live and work on the streets or simply work in commercial areas at a young age, are subjected to gross injustice and are frequently neglected by national law — despite the fact that our own country has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and played the host for the World Summit on Children.

The UNCRC is a guide both for experienced advocates and for non-specialists in the field regarding rights of children related to food, health education and all forms of life. It explains how to use regional and international treaties and mechanisms for the protection and defense of street children when national law fails.

Social, economic and political changes have great affects on the lives of people. These changes include wars in many parts of the world including Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan and economic crisis in various parts of the world. These changes and events have resulted in the deteriorating conditions of the poor, resulted in mass migration in many different parts of the world including Pakistan.

The change can be witnessed by the worsening conditions of the middle and lower middle class. The increase in inflation and poverty have increased problems for the underprivileged. There is a great gap in living standards of ‘have and havenots’. The increase in the prices of agricultural products esp. urea and seeds, shortage of water, and other incompetent policies of the government have forced farmers to leave their present profession and opt for green pastures. This results in an influx of population in the urban areas. The most affected people in society are the women and children. In the cities you come across children who have left their homes because of numerous reasons. Among them is domestic violence, forced labor, poverty and teachers’ behaviors are most common.

Street children particularly with reference to Pakistan are very unfortunate and forgotten. When we talk about children’s rights in Pakistan we normally talk about special children or those which left home due to one reason or the other. There are very few persons or NGOs who talk about street children. Street children are those children, which are living on the pavements, under bridges or in makeshift shelters, eat from dustbins or obtain food by begging or stealing. No one talks about or takes care of these children.

According to a research conducted by Azad Foundation, an NGO working for the rights of street children in Pakistan, a large percentage of children have been forced to come on to the streets because of uncaring or poverty stricken family members. Other reasons are conflict with parents or stepparents, broken homes, ill treatment by family members. In case of children living in rural areas, mass media especially films play a big role in influencing children, attracting them to the big city life.

Some are rag pickers, others sometimes help out in small tea shops, shine shoes or do myriad odd jobs. None attend school. Medical treatment is a rare case. Many, especially the very young, die an anonymous and agonizing death.

Recently a case was reported with Azad Foundation when a young boy living on streets lost his life mainly because of lack of medical facility to these poor souls. His name was Tariq. He ran away from his home in Multan because of domestic problems. He was living with other children like him. Here he became an addict of inhalants and was caught by some disease. One day he was brought in critical situation to Civil Hospital demanding immediate attention of doctors, but he was a poor and runaway kid. No one paid attention to him and because of this negligence he lost his life. His agonizing and painful death is a real shameful incident for everyone in Pakistan.

This was just one case of negligence. These children are also subject to sexual exploitation not only by some sex hungers in our society but they are also involved in homosexual activities resulting in various deadly sexual transmitted diseases.

Another case study of Muhammad Ali, a 12-year child had been a victim of sexual abuse on the very next night on the street. He had no one to protest or complaint as the other children on the streets were also used to this kind of behavior. He was abused occasionally and in return he would get enough money that he could feed himself. Slowly he was addicted to this habit and now he himself abuses the younger male members or any new child who joins their group just for the sake of enjoyment. Muhammad Ali had no regrets for his behavior as he thinks this is part of the life.
The plight of Street Children was highlighted with the incident of Javed Iqbal involving killing of more than 100 street children in Lahore. One thing to note is that all those children were street children and belonged to poor families.

The question is what caused those children to come on to the streets? And the answer is the lack of basic necessities to those families especially children.

The suicidal death of Javed Iqbal as reported by the Police has closed the doors of investigation about the motive of this inhuman act but there will be and are other Javed Iqbal in our society who must be involved in similar activities and are at large.

Now who will take care and take the responsibility for the betterment of these street children? What is the guarantee that Lahore incident will not be repeated again with these street children?

Being the part of CRC agreement, the government has the responsibility to frame laws for the betterment of these street children. Besides the government, NGOs especially UNICEF and Save the Children should consider this issue on priority basis.

Recommendations

The street children are facing immense threat. Their living conditions under bridges, on streets and footpaths make them vulnerable for other human beings as well as rodents. They face the swings of weather with no protection either from extreme heat to rain to cold weather.

With social services almost non-existent, these homeless children have no future. On the other hand, if, somehow or the other, they manage to live to adulthood, they will become a further source of questioning for so called ‘civil society’.

Following are some recommendations that should be considered by the government and NGOs working for street children:

1. In a society that is malfunctioning to the extent which the Pakistani society is, a single intervention is not going to rectify the situation. Multi-tiered level of system of help need to be developed.

2. A database should be maintained at district or city level by the government with the collaboration of Private sector or NGO’s who are working for street children to keep record of all children.

3. An institution, which offers a physical shelter and food to street children, is critical. The institution should offer functional literacy such that these children are able to develop some basic learning tools. In addition, a vocational school as a part of the institution would be of immense help in providing long-term rehabilitation of these children.

4. Another aspect of the institution would be to offer counseling to children as well as their families such that they could become part of their families again.

5. Awareness and advocacy campaigns on the issue of street children are needed critically.

6. State involvement in the dialogue is essential as the root cause of this anomaly on our streets is the capitalist ideology and its emphasis on deregulation, decreasing public expenditure on social service programs, and the belief that the market system will prevail.