Focus on runaway children

Each night, around the niches and alcoves of the sprawling Data Darbar shrine complex at the heart of Lahore, a small army of ragged boys lies on bedding of torn sheets and dusty sacks, beneath the gilded minarets of the shrine. The boys, most aged between eight and 15, sleep close together for safety and comfort. As night falls and the dinner of lentils and roti (flat bread) from the shrine's huge langaar (free kitchen) is eaten, some tell the stories of their lives. VILLAGE RUNAWAY "I left home when I was 10," says Hafeez, now nearly 13. He has never since visited his parents, who live in a village near Sheikhupura, around 100 kilometres from Lahore. Hafeez says his father is a drug addict "and I just couldn't take the constant beatings any more". His best friend, Saleem, is also aged 13. He left home near Fateh Jung, in the Attock district of the northern Punjab, because "my father married again and threw my own mother out of the house. My stepmother was always abusing me and sometime cuffed me around the head." Saleem hitched lifts in trucks until he reached Lahore. SCALE OF PROBLEM UNKNOWN The precise number of runaway children in Lahore, or across the country, is unknown. Estimates by organisations working with street children suggest there are at least 5,000 in the city at any one time, with the largest numbers based around Data Darbar or the railway station. The charitable Edhi Foundation, which houses runaway children and attempts to unite them with parents, estimates there are at least 10,000 such children in Karachi alone. It also says that by the end of 2003 there had been a "Thirty percent increase across the country" in children leaving homes, mainly due to domestic violence or acute socio-economic hardship. Other studies suggest there are over a million runaway children across the country. Most earn their living as scavengers, selling the empty bottles, cans and paper they collect each day. SURVIVING ON THE STREETS Others beg, from time to time a number offer sex, earning up to 500 rupees for an hour or so with a man, under a bridge or in a room rented at a roadside hotel. "Yes, I sometimes offer a massage [a common euphemism for sex], but only when I need money and haven't eaten a meal for a few days," Asim, aged around 11, tells IRIN. Asim begs near Minar-e-Pakistan, the monument that symbolises the creation of Pakistan and which has ironically become a hub for runaway children, petty criminals and drug addicts. The fact that he is good-looking - fair, with gleaming green eyes - makes him especially likely to be approached for sex, but he insists, "I can fend for myself. I have a knife to scare people away." More and more children living on the streets are also being drawn into a life of petty crime by those running pick-pocketing or drug-pushing mafias. "We know such things are wrong, but sometimes the men threaten us to join. They also offer money, regular food and protection," Adil, aged around 14, says. HEALTH RISKS Workers linked to Project Smile, one of the few programmes offering support and assistance to street children, told IRIN that many of the children suffer deep psychological problems, sometimes cutting themselves with razors, alongside skin infections, sexually transmitted diseases and problems arising from glue addiction. According to Project Smile activists, 95 percent of street children in the city inhale Samad Bond, a common commercial adhesive that is spread on paper or cloth, lit and smoked, or simply poured into plastic bags and sniffed, creating a temporary feeling of euphoria. The glue is easily and cheaply available. In the long term, it can cause fatal organ damage. "Many of the children suffer respiratory problems or stomach complaints because of this addiction," Dr Saeed, one of the workers with Project Smile, told IRIN. The project, initiated by the Nai Zindagi (New Life) group, which offers rehabilitation support to drug addicts, was set up in 2003. It is supported by the European Union (EU), and over 80 percent of the workers are former drug addicts themselves. They visit street children once a day in a noisy rickshaw, carrying a meal, basic medicines and sometimes clothes. The rickshaw bears a large, yellow smiley face - a symbol chosen by the street children themselves. Slowly, they have won over trust and respect - being careful not to moralise, washing matted hair, offering vitamin pills, delousing lice-infected children, treating injuries and quietly advocating a life free of drugs. They also support families who take back children, and help in rehabilitation efforts. Ahmed Bakhsh Awan, one of the outreach workers for Project Smile, says "since many of us were addicts ourselves, we too know all about being ostracised by the community and we know what acceptance is and what it really means - acceptance without any condition." He maintains that telling the children about their own addiction, and how they escaped it, is the "best motivation tool we have". OFFICIAL REACTION Official attention to the issue of runaway children peaked in the Punjab in late 1999, after a psychopath, Javed Iqbal, wrote in to national newspapers claiming he had murdered 100 street children, and then dissolved their bodies in acid. Though the deaths were never proven, the recognition by the victim's families of their clothing, carefully preserved by Iqbal, and the failure of any of the boys, all photographed by Iqbal before their deaths, to turn up, suggest the claims of the man who became known as the country's most notorious serial killer, may well have been accurate. Javed committed suicide in mysterious circumstances at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail two years after handing himself in to police in 2000. His lawyers still maintain he was murdered by other convicts or jail staff. The shocking revelations from Iqbal about his kidnapping and murder of street children, led to many official pledges to set up shelters for runaway children and booths where they could seek help. Efforts since then to put such shelters in place have been minimal, and virtually none run today in the public sector. The police too remain frequently reluctant to register reports about missing children, or to play any part in seeking them out. However, in April this year the Punjab government set up the Bureau of Child Protection and Welfare, an initiative supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The Punjab chief minister's adviser on children's rights, paediatrician Dr Faiza Asghar, has also said that laws are being brought in to better protect children, and programmes for child beggars and addicts devised. "A lot more needs to be done to protect children who are deprived," she told IRIN. UNICEF's Shamshad Bokhari explained to IRIN that "our work with the Child Protection Bureau is a first step in the effort to tackle the runaway children issue." He added that UNICEF was focusing on two main areas: "awareness-raising about the problem and the capacity building of recovery and reintegration staff, which will be working to rehabilitate children." How far such efforts will succeed in resolving the issue of street children remains to be seen. The problem is clearly a complex one, tied into overwhelming poverty, unemployment, violence within homes and the many social and economic frustrations families confront. The number of children leaving home, some aged little more than seven or eight, is also on the increase and it would appear that solutions can come only as part of broader policies that address the root causes of children's desperation and their increased suffering as a result of worsening socio-economic conditions across the country.