Daily Times

The International Street Children’s Day was observed on April 12 to highlight the problems faced by these children and to help making strategies to address these problems.

While there are no official statistics in Pakistan, the number of street children has been estimated in a 2015 report of the SPARC as 1.5 million. This figure gives one a rough idea about the situation. There is a need for both the governments and the society to immediately look for way to deal with the issue.

Street children may be defined as children who make streets or unoccupied areas their home and are not under adult supervision. Such children are sometimes referred to as children of the streets. This is meant to emphasis the distinction from children on the streets. The latter group could include beggar children and those who market their labour on the streets. They still might have families or homes to go to where some guardian takes care of them. However, children of the street have no adult supervision and no guardian to takes care of them.

There are various reasons for the emergence of children “of the street”. Most frequently it all begins with domestic violence. Children who face violence at home or work, find themselves in a very difficult position. They are traumatized and live in a constant state of fear. Some of them may have been abused by adults either verbally, physically or sexually.

In some segments of society the parents are believed to have a right to beat up their children. Then there is abuse of domestic child labour at the hands mostly of their employers. Children in such situations often discover that the only one way out is escape. Some of these children get lucky and end up with charities. The rest of them end up on the streets where they are subject to severe health hazards, uncertain livelihood, and violent conditions. At one point it becomes impossible for these children to reintegrate into the mainstream society.

Other motives for children to run away from their homes and make streets their home include unemployment and poverty. One continues to hear reports of a parent killing his or her child because they can’t feed them. However, incidents of parents abandoning their children due to poverty go unreported.

Street children may be defined as children who make streets or unoccupied areas their home and are not under adult supervision. Such children are sometimes referred to as children of the streets. This is meant to emphasis the distinction from children on the streets. The latter group could include beggar children and those who market their labour on the streets

One of the biggest problem Pakistan faces today is its growing population. The unchecked population growth is making the problems of unemployment and poverty worse. People having too many mouths to feed often become desperate and start abandoning or killing their children. Being abandoned by the prents is a great loss to the child. The child may never know love, and will always have severe trust issues. It might push him or her to crime and drugs.

The biggest loss for a street child is his or her childhood. They have to see the worst aspects of the society and they don’t know what childhood is, so when they grow up, they treat the society in the same way.

There is a need to take steps to reduce the number of street children in the country and to rehabilitate those already among the group. A beginning can probably be made with an acknowledgement of the rights of a child. Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Child, but there seems to be a severe lack of understanding of these rights. For instance, child labour is a very common phenomenon. A large number of the governing elite, including politicians, civil servants and other decision makers have very young children babysitting their own children. These children help the elite kids prepare for school. They pick heavy school bags of children older than themselves.

The prime minister has said on multiple occasions that he wants to see Pakistan turn into a welfare state. While there is no point to doubting the intentions of another Pakistani, one sees many people in the ruling circles violate many principles of a welfare state.

Street children are one of the most neglected groups in any policy or decision making. Not many people know about them. None seem to care.

The problem of street children cannot be solved in isolation. It has many aspects to it. First and foremost, it is related to health sector: there is a need to encourage planned parenthood. There is little point after all to giving birth to a child who will likely be killed or abandoned. Planned parenthood requires women to be empowered.

Then there is a need for educating parents in parenting. The society needs to pay more attention to the science of psychology and encourage counselling. There is a need also to restructure the economy because most of these street children work in the informal sector.

Public policy making is not a natural science experiment in which all variables can be controlled. there is a need for a multi-sectorial approach to solve this problem. Hopefully, Pakistan will be able to confront the problem and be the great nation our founding fathers wanted it to be.

The writer is a freelancer